An assortment of Oneshots and other ideas
by Zenzao
Summary: Over the last couple of years I've accrued a number of such concepts that didn't quite expand into full-on stories, were idle fancies for that particular day of writing, or were the answers to challenge prompts. Will include the occasional XO, straight-up Other Fandom/Series, so on and so forth. No guarantee on quality/enjoyability. All genres may apply.
1. 1: Alternative Empire beginning

Who cast the first spell would be decided later on, mostly at the trial in the Ministry a month later.

Who cast the last spell, on the other hand, was most certainly more easily guessed at. "_Imperio_!" the shouted Unforgivable slammed into the dueling blond haired teenager and nearly knocked him off of his feet, and it was at much length that his wiry and twisting mind succumbed to the unknown caster's will.

The other two, both colored by brilliant auburn hair of varying lengths, stood panting in the other two positions of the unwittingly made triangle as piercing blue eyes spread over the area in search of who had appeared.

His younger and far more sensible brother took the opportunity to punch him in the nose to the crunch of cartilage breaking and a steadily spreading spray of crimson fluid before marching sharply over toward their cowering sister.

Or so she had seemed just moments earlier, not ten or fifteens seconds before when the three-way duel had erupted, but now she was calmly composed and sitting on her knees in a manner unlike any that he had ever seen her react with toward magic since the incident.

For one terrible moment Aberforth Dumbledore suspected their sister was brain-damaged by a wayward curse. It was about that point that the intruder in their argument put that concern to rest.

"She's fine. I put her to sleep before I took over Grindelwald." Said the man, for he was plainly so, given the longish black hair, gaunt green eyes, and beyond-the-times choice of clothing in addition to an unsightly inflection of black dots along the jaw and cheeks could hardly have been a teenager.

He also gripped a very long white wand in one hand, and a more care-worn brown wooden one in his other. Aberforth scowled furiously as he examined him and the paused foreigner standing with the typical frown tugging at his features a few feet away.

His brother Albus recovered from the unexpected blow to his face and finished patching up the worst of the damage, and then he looked at the adult wizard and felt a thrill of emotions race down up and down his spine.

The nearest he could settle down on was something of gratefulness, and he opened his mouth to begrudgingly thank the stranger when Grindelwald twitched and for a moment brought his own wand up into the air in the unmistakable motions of a very dangerous fire curse.

A low _bang_! echoed around the clearing as said wizard was disarmed and slammed into a tree, adding insult to injury as his wand-arm was dislocated.

"Save it for the trial, Albus," the man said in a different tone to that which he had reassured Aberforth with, a biting snap. Albus stood up a little straighter as his eyebrows knitted together in a more easily defined anger and only just kept from brandishing his own wand with it.

"Aberforth, if you'd be so kind as to gather Grindelwald's wand for me, there's a good chap, I believe we can set this averted train-wreck onto a proper course." The man requested in the same return to a softer tone.

Slowly and warily the younger Dumbledore brother did so and it was as the man was distracted watching him that Albus struck. His wounded pride, not only at being down-dressed in the ideals of the Hallows by his own idiot of a sibling, but also being almost coldly addressed by this no-body was too much to accept.

He vanished in a crack of Disapparation and reappeared some feet away and in the air, dropping a good twenty feet but confident in his aim nevertheless.

The ground rose up as if to swallow the intruder and formed a cage of dirt and root and rock, pressing in on the man to subdue and contain him. Confident that his will had been successfully enforced, Albus twisted about to Apparate away.

He found his body unresponsive. A second later and he hit the harsh ground for himself, only barely getting up a nonverbal cushioning charm in time to delay the worst of the pain from such a fall.

Aberforth looked down on him with disgust, then directed a well-aimed kick to Grindelwald's face and for the second time that afternoon broke someone's nose.

The walls of earth and what-have-you that Albus had called into form began to bleed and peal back, revealing a dirty haired and grime coated, slightly bleeding adult wizard in otherwise healthy condition.

The cage that had been intended to contain him was slowly transfiguring itself into a variety of earthen toned plants and insect life as the dark stained wand slowly twirled through the air.

"That was a very, very bloody stupid move. I just wrested control of a man whose mind is considered to be your equal, Dumbledore, and you still thought it safe or creative to try and entrap me? Merlins beard, you're supposed to be the smartest wizard of this generation!" the man scolded him harshly as he finally stepped up and out of the work of art left in his wake.

Aberforth felt, for the first time in a very long time, the beginnings of a smile rise up as he listened. He would step in if he thought Albus was in serious danger, but he had little doubt that it would do much good.

"Stop wallowing in the dirt and come stand with the rest of us lowly mortals already, Dumbledore." The man ordered with an unmistakable distaste, stowing away his cleaner wand in a holster attached to that wrist and forearm.

If looks could kill, than most probably everyone standing nearest would have been struck down on the spot, including their aging neighbor Bathilda Bagshot, who chose that moment to react to all the noise by waddling over to the fence and looking across.

"Good heavens! What is- _Gellert_!" her initial concern at the scene changed rather easily to one for her nephew at the sight of his slumped and bloody faced form resting against the base of the trees nearby.

When he didn't stir to his name being called she gave a misty eyed sniff and quickly pushed her way around the bushes and to the gate, swinging it open and hurrying toward him.

She spared the other adult wizard a look of confusion over his apparent lack of concern for the blood, then paused as she saw young Albus laying in the mud and the mystifying transfiguration not much farther along.

The stranger filled in some of the details rather conveniently, saying, "They had a bit of a test of their magical prowess, and I'm afraid it spun out of control when Ariana and Aberforth stepped out to watch- you know how it gets around excitable Quidditch players, yes? A bit more effort to outdo one another with an audience?" he lied remarkably smoothly, his tone and expression conveying just enough concern.

Bathilda looked back to her nephew with heavy eyes. "But why is he slumped like that?" she asked him nervously, only the rise and fall of Grindelwald's chest keeping her from rushing over any further.

"I had to patch up the nearest and more grievously injured of the two, and was just about to help him once I was through with Albus here. Isn't that right?" he added toward Dumbledore while extending one hand to lift the boy to his feet, green eyes boring into enraged and calculating blue.

Aberforth answered when it seemed Albus would do nothing of the sort. "Aye, ma'am. We were just wanting a proper look at their skill, and it flared more powerfully than expected." He affirmed the lie in his usual, partly demure and quiet tones, just enough anger apparent to indicate his frustration at the way it had turned out.

The dark haired man leaned over and gripped Albus free hand between both of his own and, with a grunt, drew the auburn haired wizard to his feet. "Why don't you take your family back inside while I have a chat with Mrs. Bagshot, Albus?" he suggested with a flat imitation of a kindly smile.

His worn wand was by now sticking up out of the sophisticated looking belt, but Albus warily trotted over to his sleeping sister and lifter her up into his arms with a levitation charm and hurried inside of the front door, allowing it to slam shut before Aberforth could even step forward to follow.

Bathilda looked back and forth between them in concern, and the stranger allayed her once more. "Alas," he said quietly, "I think his pride took as much damage as his body. Well!" smiling more genuinely, he looked at the old woman and said in a pleasanter tone, "Shall we go and have a look at your nephew?"

She nodded as Aberforth wandered over to the porch and sat down, having no interest in hearing Albus fume or the confrontation that would no doubt follow, but most assuredly curious and still unsure about the unknown man.

She was unprepared for the almost silently whispered "Obliviate!" that followed as they stood over Grindelwald's body, and the follow-up stunner insured she was out of the way. He levitated her back over the fence and into her house, where she was left sitting in her armchair and the small table before it still lined with pages about her up-coming book.

After that was done the older wizard staunched Grindelwald's bleeding but left the younger wizards nose smashed in, then drew the other wand again and pushed Grindelwald to march over to the house.

Quite a few minutes later and the lot of them were gathered together inside of the Dumbledore's living room, or what counted toward it for the time- the kitchen. Ariana was still slumbering easily in her small room, while Albus stood at the head of the table where once his father, and later mother, had often sat at as the head of the family.

Aberforth was beside him to the left, while Grindelwald was slumped across from him. The as of yet unnamed stranger sat in a conjured and remarkably more comfortable looking chair overflowing with red pillows.

He gestured with his plain looking wand, giving the right to speak rather rudely to Albus seeing as it was already so being his home, and the older of the two brothers managed to keep from doing something about it only due to his brief time to vent into a letter after stepping inside.

"What do you want?" Albus demanded in a poor imitation of the calmness he might yet learn to radiate in his eldest years, leaning the palms of his hands along the edge of the table without sitting down.

"Why have you interfered in the duel, and better yet where do you come from?" he continued to ask, "I have been in correspondence with many of the names of the current day, and not once in my references have I ever heard mention of a man like you."

The other adult wizard nodded at the questions and answered in a better tone than he had yet addressed Albus with, in reverse order. "I have spent the majority of my time in seclusion due in part to the gift my great aunt awoke within me during my youth, the Seer's Inner Eye." He said simply.

"It has not been an easy trip to get here, considering the multiple paths the Eye revealed as being possible should certain outcomes be met. I fear that if I had not intervened at the time that I did, one of your four would have died, and two others set upon a path of mutual destruction for the years ahead." He explained in a passable imitation of truth.

"Thus," he paused to look at them more seriously, and then to Grindelwald in particular, he said "I have chosen to take the least likely of the paths I have foreseen to prevent such a tragedy from occurring. If you continue to haunt after the Hallows, I will be forced to dissuade you, for nothing good can come of their union- on the opposite, if truth be told."

Albus blue gaze was not only skeptical, but critical. "You have some degree of proof for this rather large pile of Thestral waste?" he requested in a far more flat tone.

The man nodded. "You have told no one but your brother and Grindelwald of your plans to utilize the Hallows for the 'Greater Good', enslaving all of muggle-kind and presenting yourselves as the two equally placed overlords of a new wizard dominion."

"You know that Grindelwald desires to use the Resurrection Stone for creating numerable Inferi armies, despite the fact that it can only call upon shades of the human soul from that which exists beyond. You would yet take up the Wand if you could with so much ease, and happily demonstrate its skill in a way that no other wand could flourish for you."

"But," he paused at last, and the air in the room cooled noticeably as the windows darkened and a fell wind rustled their hairs, "if you dared to take up these objects and worked together with Gellert Grindelwald, I can promise you that there are those alike myself stationed throughout the world who would rise up and eradicate you." He swore quite easily.

Albus reaction to the words was to take command of the household magic and the ancestral wards his father had wrought, and his mother had brought to this house, to hold the stranger in place and do something about his condescending attitude and tones.

Like unseen, ethereal chains, the Dumbledore's magic enshrouded himself and caused his power to quadruple, to nearly quintuple, and when he spoke his words caused the windows and other silverware and glass to rattle on the brink of destruction.

"You have come unbidden to my home, and insulted me time and time again. You have endangered my ideals, and threatened to destroy what can, and must, be done before the muggles can ruin us. NO MORE! Begone from my home, my village, and my world if I could so enforce it!" he very nearly shouted.

The power of his voice dissolved the conjured chair and swept the other man back against a wall, holding him there and piercing through the old concrete in flickering waves.

Aberforth had never seen it done before, and he was briefly awed by the effect before he saw exactly how much damage was being reaped against the unknown man; his flesh was rippling and drawing free of his underlying muscles, giving a bizarre and distended look, and flakes were drifting free to waft down the hall.

"What are you doing? You're killing him!" the younger brother objected, standing up. Albus gestured and he was pushed back down and against his seat.

"What must be done for the Greater Good." Albus echoed the anthem he would yet repeat if the future was not changed, if he truly marched forward at Grindelwald's side and united the Hallows against the world.

Despite this and the power destroying the other wizard, the stranger managed a mangled grin and sagged into the concrete obediently.

* * *

><p>This is what Ascension of an Empire originally started off as, a time-travel fic in which the Empire had already been built and was trying to be halted by future generations of wizards in opposition of it. I scrapped this concept and decided to work on building things up first, so while this could yet happen, it would only happen quite some years from now after Empire was concluded.<p> 


	2. 2: Cthulhu Madness! Take 1

How do you describe what it feels like to stand before something that is _forgot_? To have a creature so ghastly that it's true visage is stricken from all form of memory, utterly twisted and reshaped until any trace left behind resembles nothing in so much as that what it truly is?

Cthulhu as it is properly seen is nothing alike the wary depictions H.P. Lovecraft once wrote about, for he sought only fleetingly along the edges of a dreams dream to encounter his truth.

Exhilaration surged through my veins and sent my heartbeat pounding more firmly than before, and sweat swirled among the wild tendrils of black hair surrounding my face, but my piercing green gaze was unaffected and remained firm and steady.

The cloak upon my shoulders whispered and fluttered heavily in an unseen and unnoticed wind, and in my left hand the blood-soaked elder wood wand pulsed in time to my hearts rapid pace. The alien stonework beneath my feet rumbled as Cthulhu stirred into awareness for the first time since it had been forcefully abandoned from memory.

The eyes alone flared burning with purple light, multifaceted so that eight different angles looked down upon me from within each pupil. A note unlike a voice, more akin to the sound of water dripping off of battered gutters in a hurricane, filled the air between it and I.

Magic translated the note into words that I could understand, both within my mind and with my ears, "_I have dreamed a thousand dreams in the span of reality, and each dream has splintered into a hundred visions of to-come_," Cthulhu spoke, and another note filled the air.

"_And I have seen what is to-come in any variety known to living things. But you are not among them, and toward the end no more am I among them. Why do you disturb the to-come that I have known and savored for a thousand thousand aeons_?" if curiosity could have been known to such a figure, than perhaps it was the emotion most focused among its speech toward me.

For the first time I spoke up in response, "Your aeon has truly passed, and your time among even _the forgot_ten _realms_ has come toward a close. Be embraced now by that which walks all planes, and that which has no proper place among the living nor unliving. I am to you as you are to a man, _Youngest of the Old Ones_; the _Ancientest of even They_ commands my will now. It is time to return beyond the stars and abandon your dreams."

Time passed, then. Cthulhu had expired all power to remain within the waken realms, or the dreamt realms, or any realm to which humanity had ever passed through or would. I had come to remove it and return the order to the forgot that had been unbalanced for some time of late on behalf of a greater force.

It did not go quietly back into that which it must. In the fury of It's struggles many more things of the forgot were stirred into remembrance, and I knew that it would be my duty to undue or subdue them the same. But It's work was well placed, for they fled beyond my grasp, focused as I must upon but one figure at a time to endure, and I knew then that it would be beyond me to regather them alone before the chaos was sown beyond proper time.

Others, then, would be required.

* * *

><p>Blood rained down in a shower of mayhem and gore, the reaping of the Giants and the Acromantula hordes among the Fiendfyre carving up the land of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.<p>

I watched it unfold from my perch upon the Astronomy Tower, keen vision gazing down and measuring the worth of each tiny spec hustling and soaring around in a nigh-madness induced panic, seeking out two among them all- or three, if I were truly to be honest.

Voldemort dwelt somewhere far below, but whether it was in command and mastery of the wicked flames consuming everything almost out of control or hidden somewhere else in thought or strife, I did not yet know.

This realms Harry Potter may likewise be engaged in the combat streaming forth in brilliant resolution, and again I knew not what his fate herein was or would be.

And I perused what should be the last battle for Neville Longbottom; after-all, the Prophecy gave rite toward two children with the potential to eradicate Voldemort's regime. If it were he instead of another form of me, than I would be wise not to overlook the lesser boy- or man, given the date, in my search for one worthy to combat the hordes of _the forgot_.

A wayward spell crashed against the Tower and shook it violently, and I slipped down into open air after a moment and fell toward another patch of open wall after a few seconds, landing lightly on my toes and rolling forward into another battle and cacophony of screaming spells.

I found myself facing James Potter, locked in combat with Severus Snape as well as Flitwick and Pomona Sprout. It seemed that this realm belonged to Neville after-all, then, or else Voldemort had been more careless than could be expected given that night.

My pseudo-father worked in well tandem with Flitwick and Sprout as Snape ducked and weaved with his great black cape billowing out behind him like the wings of an obscure bat, and he gathered statues and suits of armor toward himself in defense as the vicious hues of Sectumsempra spread along the crumbling hallway.

No one seemed to have taken note of me, and I had no intention of revealing my presence toward anyone else just yet, watching the match of Transfiguration, Charms, and Alchemy unfold in a masterful conduction between three obvious masters and one above-average man.

Whatever had happened in the past, James Potter was not the expert he once had been to duel his way out of Voldemort's talons thrice prior to 1981. He had obviously suffered some disillusionary encounter at some point, and it showed as his work was only ever enough to match Snapes, rather than surpass it.

At last Snape was backed up against a window, and he tore through it without a backward glance rather than be captured or defeated at the hands of his old school and love-rival.

He did not escape. My father followed him out of the window despite the protests of Flitwick and Sprout, and a chain of stone wrapped around Snape's throat and James Potter's left wrist. In a sort-of-fascination, I watched them crash into the body of a giant and still.

It was a fascinating observation, watching the two struggle on the way to an inevitable collision with the unforgiving surfaces below, but my attention soon faded after the faint thump trailed up toward the hole and I looked instead upon the glistening flash of silver in the twilight reflections of the open Great Hall.

As expected, Neville wrecked war upon the Death Eaters in near reach as he cut through physical shields with the goblin hued steel, reflecting back what spells he could, and flashing his teeth in a violent display of deep-rooted anger more so than the terror others might have displayed when so strongly outnumbered.

His maneuver, alas, was not great enough. Luck and determination will only take one so far when faced down by overwhelming odds and higher skills, if only just above ones own, in such a degree of figures.

The first spell took him by the knee, and he spun in place to dodge several others even as the blood spewed out among the fragmented shards of stark white jutting from the ruined cap.

His breath exploded past mangled lips as the sword was knocked from elbow-less hands back into his face, cleaving a narrow trench from eyebrow to chin and shaving away his nose all in the same motion, and he sank to his good knee in half-blinded fury and howled out his pain.

His hands and head rolled free from the rest of the body a moment later, taking his last defiant note with him into a black ditch gouged into the stone.

Voldemort himself appeared, then, from the mass of shadows and masks surrounding the lost Chosen child, and even from a distance his red gaze seemed to glow with the power of a destiny conquered from both sides.

I knew, with grim satisfaction, that it was neither a fellow Harry Potter or wayward Neville Longbottom that I could recruit to my aide, but one Voldemort, instead. Unhappiness soaked into my resolve, and even as I Apparated to his side I half regretted not lending my guide toward the now dead wizard behind me.

Voldemort did not flinch, though his troops all but spun inward upon themselves in concern and outrage, and a dozen trained wands fell upon my form as I looked over the alabaster form.

"This... should not be." He spoke softly, examining me in turn. I agreed with him.

"No, it should not." And with that I ripped his spirit from the flesh, reached out and grasped the empty suit of meat and bone that had once housed him, and vanished to the next world nearest.

* * *

><p>We appeared in a cavern this time, the eerie were-light cast out by a central green pedestal among a narrow island of cold and slime coated rock the focus for the time.<p>

I dropped Voldemort's body to the ground carelessly and allowed his mangled and maligned spirit to float down into it slowly and painfully.

"I am not the boy you knew and no doubt slew, Voldemort. I have lived a far greater life than that boy, and I serve a greater cause than merely the human species at this era... I offer you the hand of friendship in place of your worlds Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom, as you are the one whom has conquered." I told him with the same note of displeasure apparent.

When he had finally returned to his body with a terrible, racking cough, his pale red gaze flared into violent rage, but his fingers clenched uselessly and he slowly rose to his feet on his own.

* * *

><p>An Eldergod!Slave!Harry concept that never got any further along.<p> 


	3. 3: Alternative Sirius

The knock at my door was more or less to be expected, given the nature of the rather uncomfortable phone call earlier that day. "Come in." I called to the distorted image coming through the glass panel with my name embossed on the front of it.

The image bent as the handle was turned and I received my first view of the dark haired 'wizard'. I have to say, he certainly looked like the deranged asylum inmate he swore he wasn't during our talk between the scruffy black hair and and heavy bags beneath each wild eye, and I silently fingered the loose silver band over one finger in case this came down to force.

"Harry Dresden?" He rasped somewhat painfully, taking in my appearance as I examined him in turn. I nodded once in response and he shuffled through the doorway, quietly shutting the door behind himself before approaching the lone chair I kept for visitors.

Something akin to desperation filled his motions, and that did very little to reassure me. "What can I do for you, Mr. Regulus?" I asked him in a steady tone of voice.

He warily picked up one of the brochures on my desk with a slight hint of disbelief apparent in his expression, and I caught a glimpse of something brown tucked beneath his ragged shirt. Blasting rod? I wondered silently.

He glanced up at me from the description of the seven laws. "Are you really a wizard?" He questioned doubtfully, dropping the pamphlet down where he had picked it up and staring into my eyes.

I stared back and waited. Either we'd-

_A young man cloaked in cloths of brilliant red and gold walked alone among a hall of picture frames, each one fading from the image of various men and women to black cloaked figures as he passed them by._

_At the end of the hall the largest picture, that of a young man with piercing green eyes and sprawled black hair, stared out forlornly as he too began to change with a rattling hiss._

_The man reached up to touch the last frame while he still could before collapsing to his knees_...

"What in Merlin's name are you?" He demanded, pushing away from the desk violently and digging into his shirt for the blasting rod concealed there. I blinked and leveled my hand at him, calling out "Forzare!" before he could finish drawing it in time.

The force spell knocked him out of the chair and up against my door with a heavy thud, and his head rocked back against it with enough force to send him into unconsciousness.

Carefully and mindful that this could be a trap, I stood up and collected his rather pitiful looking length of wood and tossed it over to my chair before checking his pulse to make sure I hadn't just killed him by mistake- risking another violation of the First Law was something I wanted to avoid given the recent crap with Morgan and the release from my Doom of Damocles.

Thankfully he was still breathing shallowly and his pulse checked out. "I don't know who you really are, but at least I can confirm you've got a talent for magic, Mr. Regulus." I told the older looking man and lugged him up into the chair again, then brought out a spare pair of Murphy's cuffs I had borrowed without asking and locked him to a foot of my table.

"There. Now to wait for you to wake up and answer some questions." I said and dropped his blasting rod into drawer on my desk, then sat down to wait for some actual business venture to crop up.

* * *

><p>He awoke some time later, a good few hours past the initial point when I would open up in the late morning. Bleary eyes blinked around at his settings and he made to sit up, only to be drawn short by the cuff around his left wrist with a grunt of minor annoyance, rubbing his head sorely for a moment before reaching down to dig around beneath his shirt in search of the length of wood.<p>

I couldn't help interjecting at that point, "Looking for something?" and then watching as his head snapped up with a winch to look at me. His eyes cleared up after a long moment and he grimaced heavily.

"Glad to see you're finally awake. I'd like to ask a few questions, mostly concerning who you actually are and why you sought me out." I told him calmly, leaning over the desk to look at him properly.

"I'd like to know a few more things about you myself" He shot back in something akin to a guttural growl, and I almost thought he was baring his teeth at me like a rabid dog would.

One more point for the insanity plea. I thought and shrugged uncomfortably, resigning the outcome of this meeting to a probable call to Edinburgh for a Warden. Mad wizards roaming around don't equal good business, if Victor Sells had been anything to go by.

"Firstly, where did you come from, given that I haven't been able to trace any recent escapes from an asylum in the next nearest few states around here?" I asked.

He tried to sit up straighter in the chair, ignoring the bite of the cold steel into his flesh, and said "I already told you I'm not an escaped lunatic! I don't know how the veil shunted me over here, and I haven't been able to Disapparate back!"

There's that mystery word again, but we're getting closer. I motioned for him to go on and then leaned down to dig around in my drawers for a pen and some paper; it might help to trace down his origins through each statement I could go over. A shuffling motion on the other side of the desk caught my eyes as his shadow flickered, and when I brought my hand up again to knock his lights out if needed I found myself on the receiving end of a large black dog.

"Wha- Forza-!" my shout-turned-spell was cut short as the dog crashed into my upper body and pressed me flat against the floor, knocking the air out of my lungs and nearly giving me the treatment I had given him earlier in the day. Stars danced in my blackening vision as the dog pressed both of my hands to the floor and sat down on my upper body heavily.

I coughed and in between one moment and the next the dog was replaced by the wizard, straddling my chest with his knees sunk into each palm and his hands pressed against my throat.

"Better. I know you yanks conduct business a little differently than we do, but this is a little too far; a name in the muggle phone book? Does the International Statute of Secrecy mean that little to you?" He demanded.

I grunted.

* * *

><p>The original concept for Sirius Interruptions.<p> 


	4. 4: Cthulhu Madness! Take 2

There will always be a _chance_, a _strand _within the bands of time, in which a Hero manages the will, the stamina, the courage, and the luck, to overcome the odds stacked against him or her.

That is what is _right_, and that is what is even and fair within the scale of the cosmos, that no matter how great the situation is set at least one reality will give righteous vengeance for what has been wrought.

_But._..

There exist certain _things_ of such magnitude, bearing a capability so vast, that their presence overlaps the bands of time and flow freely outside of its constraints, and it is where _they_ are concerned that no Hero, no Man, may possibly conquer.

_And yet I tried_.

I fought the undead Inferius armies he suffered to loose upon this world, and I stood before the Sphinx's and Dragon's and great Octopi dredged up from the depths of the sea, and when no being living or dead could halt my forward march, for I had been born upon the one strand that should have surpassed all, he sought outside where living memory should ever go.

_The forgotten realms._

He dredged up the things Man had willingly let go of and cast from our ancestral histories, and in doing so stirred the will of those things beyond our scope of understanding.

He was consumed from the very pit of his soul to the edges of his flesh, and upon the feast of memories from his mind he provided a gateway to that realm for _they _to cross over once again.

I had no idea what the definition of power truly meant until the heavens sank into eternal pitch black, and the stars in the winter night were blotted from the sky as their wandering light was eaten whole.

The world cried and wept beneath the rising tides of insanity in which the new presences brought with them, and in time this earth was theirs once again, resisting what forces mortal might could bring to bear against them and erasing such with scars to forever mar the land.

The able willed and fortified of like mind stood with me in my fight as we struggled to reach the place where he had fallen and released the nightmares of our ancient minds to consume our modern, waking earth.

For a short time, as it always revolves around time, I believed it could be done.

Magic guided where the other systems of reality were crumbling, and it was time itself coming apart and shattering the bands down upon a series of similar strands that the temporary light of hope eclipsed the horror ruling over us, for _others _began to appear.

They all came from the strands in which, at one point or another, he had won. Where they had been forced to succumb, to falter, and to slave before his will.

And it was the gateway opening into the waking earth here that saw the identical desire arise within their own strands everlasting rival, and so it was to those worlds that the gateways to the forgot were flung wide open.

Like my world, they had all been overthrown by similar things of grand magnitude and unending weight of mind. The bands of time could not endure such presences closing in upon it from so many strands, and it was thus which saw the worlds all come together into a singular whole at the end of the day.

It was such that also dredged up the path beyond_ the forgot_ to _the outer gates_, and if we had thought nothing worse could possibly co-exist than our pitifully limited existences were direly mistaken.

The _Ancientest of They_, a blight upon creation, suffered to raise its conscious thought outward upon our last strand of time; and so reality was wrecked, and the final laws of Magic came undone, as the First and the Last, the Making and Undoing in one, that which had no predecessor and no successor, awoke.

Hope _died _that moment.

Horror_ faded_ beneath the flickers of dying thought.

And the gateways began to crumble one heartbeat at a time, as the last of _humanity_ and _animus_bled into empty nothingness, and the remembrance of the things were cast from the narrowing collective.

I was the last to go, the last living human and last burning soul, the one who should have conquered all within my strand of time.

And it was I who spared the effort to look through the gateways, across the forgot, and glimpsed the form that sat within the outer gates...

_..._

_..._

_..._

And was _reborn_, standing upon the ruins of creation left solely defined by _the forgot_ and _the outer gates_.

I had_ joined_ that which crept in the recesses of the mind, Magic as my weight against all in place of an unending intellect and presence, becoming one of the things themselves in a humans guise.

And from that left over shard, the worlds began to flow once more.

* * *

><p>ElderGod!Harry in the end, in a universe created by the oldest of the Great Old Ones and ruined by their coming once more.<p> 


	5. 5: Alternative prologue Empire

"Through the fire and flames, gents," he offered offhandedly, a wry smile on his lips at the terrible choice of alliteration. Beside him Aberforth sighed in a resigned sort of manner and pushed the half-moon glasses perched over his nose, rather in imitation of the brother he had lost long ago, back into position before they went any further.

"You wouldn't know a dramatic moment if it pinned you to the wall beneath the inevitable collapse of the building about your head." The now-oldest Dumbledore sibling declared warily, rubbing the old scar embedded in his left wrist where the Hallows emblem had once been carved as a sign of fealty toward the Lords of Magical Britain- Gellert Grindelwald and his own older brother, Albus Dumbledore.

The youth across from him took on an affronted look as he responded. "I think I would, actually, but the finesse one requires to maintain a grand outlook no matter how grim the scenario involved about ones-self is something I had drilled into me- rather literally, given Riddle's choice of enforcement." He said firmly.

Aberforth merely shook his head and looked down at the shimmering pale blue material draped around the other wizard's neck like a cape. "And just where is Tom Riddle at this moment, Potter?" he asked.

Harry James Potter, formerly the heir of the Lords of Magical Britain, and now confirmed Chosen One against the very man who had lead his training in life for close to two decades, had rebelled against the forces in control of him several months prior.

One of his first acts was to subdue Enforcer Riddle and shuffle the mostly-brain-dead man into a simple mote of dust through some heavy Transfiguration, then seal said mote within a ruby he had cracked down the middle with a conveniently placed sword before repairing it again, now plus one mote of Riddle at the off-centered core.

Said ruby now sat shrunken with a greater jewel of the same type and cut, and that it self held within a binding-potion-saturated gold chain set around his throat. It was hidden from visible sight and locked to his flesh to keep it stilled and silenced, and he had never once told another living being where it was or who it contained on the very, very rare occurrence that any had stumbled upon it- and those who did usually lost nine tenths of their memories and wound up in an Iron Maiden casket buried half way to China.

Harry Potter was not a kind or forgiving man under any stretch of the word.

"Safe, and thank you very much for inquiring about his status. I have no intention to reveal any more regarding such. Now, if no one else has any protest toward what history we are about to set and change?" he asked in turn to not merely Aberforth, but Nicholas Flamel himself and the handful of gathered wizards united beneath him.

They had little to say to the man who would have gone on to rule them. "Nothing at all?" he asked, a little surprised even. "Very good. Let us proceed, then." And with those words, he stepped through the threshold surrounding the ancient fortress that had once been a school, and soared over the land in a rush of shadow.

* * *

><p>What might have happened if I ever get Empire advanced far enough along. This another different take from the earlier one posted.<p> 


	6. 6: Nearly Unbreakable Vow

Ron's hand was clenched so tightly inside of Georges own that the shaking carried through to both of their arms, and the red splotches around the second-youngest Weasley siblings eyes stood out against the sheet-white color of his face.

"Get over here already, would you? I can't hold him still much longer!" George hissed over at his twin, who was rummaging around within their parents nightstand rather helplessly in search of a wand.

Ron shuddered again against the pain in his tongue where the candy had burned through, but he resisted the urge to start crying any further to keep his brothers from berating and shouting him down.

"Aha!" Fred exclaimed enthusiastically as his fingers wrapped around something long, thin, and to his surprise after drawing it free, vibrantly purple.

George glanced over nervously. "What kind of wand is that?" he demanded, anxious to get this over and done with. Fred stared at it as if unsure of what to say, before frowning and turning to the other two.

"I don't know, what if its in here, it has to be the spare I heard them talking about last week. I think it might be broken, though, or else why is it colored like this?" he responded and jumped as it began to shake in his hands.

"What did it do that for?" he added after another few moments, more and more unsure about what they were trying to do with a possibly broken wand.

"Throw it away already! We might as well try raiding Charlies room!" George told him, but Fred shook his head.

"We don't have much time left before dad and Charlie get back, you git! We've got to try with what we have- and you, shut it!" he added with a sharp look at Ron's trembling lips, trying to curb the inevitable noise before it was too late.

George squeezed his fingers extra hard and gestured for his twin to start already. "Do you swear not to tell anyone else about this?" Fred ordered after stepping between them and thrusting the awkward wand over the other twos hands.

Ron opened his mouth to reply when the doorknob turned and their father stepped in, calling back, "Just a moment, Charlie, I-" and stopping dad as his eyes took in the sight before him.

Fred hissed out a breath between clenched teeth at the same time as George, saying rapidly, "I swear, this isn't what it looks like!" and trying to hide the wand behind his back.

"Dad? Whats up?" Charlie's voice echoed down the hall. The look on their fathers face seemed to change, then. It rolled from surprise into confusion and then, as Ron began crying in earnest, to anger.

"_What, exactly, are you two doing to your brother_?" he demanded in a deceptively quiet tone. The twins paled. He never used that kind of tone, as if imitating their mother.

"Nothing! Just a little magic trick!" Fred tried. The buzzing of the object in his hands continued rather obviously. Their father strode into the room and gave just a moments hesitation at what he saw grasped therein behind the boys hands, almost seeming to be taken aback, before he scowled and vanished it.

"You two are going to sit down and explain in full detail what has been going on here!" he ordered sharply. "_Now_!"

George dropped to the floor, having long ago released Ron's fingers, and Fred promptly followed up and sat down right beside him as if drawing strength and solace from numbers.

Ron ran up to their father and held on around the elder wizards knees, muffling his wailing and tears as Arthur placed a hand reassuringly over his head.

Half the house could hear the echo of his voice ten minutes later when the twins finally explained the situation and what they had been in the process of doing, followed up almost immediately by the rather higher pitched shrieks and slap of a conjured belt waylaying them at the nearest available patch of skin.

* * *

><p>A bit of humor for a Challenge response over at Dark Lord Potter. Supposed to be the scene where Fred and George nearly used the Unbreakable Vow on Ron mentioned in Half-blood Prince.<p> 


	7. 7: XO 2 Blade of the Immortal

The jug of sake hit the oaken table with a flat thump even his own ears barely registered, clouded green eyes looking up at the effeminate man sitting across from him.

"Your kidding." He stated through the alcohol in his veins, clogging up his mental acuity. The other simply stared, unmoving for the most part, only glancing about with pale brown eyes sharply by comparison and offering no repetition of his words.

Nearby the wane moonlight danced across a pool of water- a koi pond, of all things, given the slumdog neighborhood. Shaggy black hair stirred as he shook his head negatively toward the question, leaning back and dragging the jug with him.

His only warnings came from the inevitable whistle of a cutting-blade pushing through the air and the slightest narrowing of those brown eyes.

His chair legs collapsed away with a single, heavy snick, and he found himself sliding to the floor on his side. In response to this mysterious assault he clutched the jug to his chest as if it were his first born son, wrapping it up tight with one arm and shielding it from harm.

"You have a strange sense of priorities, Potter." The other man said softly, rising from his cross-legged position and looking into the shadows where his backup had crept forth.

The now-identified Potter whispered something in response, too quietly to hear.

"Those are your last words?" asked the other, raising a hand to wait for a confirmation before he finished the execution of his target.

Potter turned those murky green eyes up to look at him- only they weren't quite so muddied up somehow, and actually seemed to reflect the pale light of the moon in the flat disks of his pupils.

"That they are." He answered, dragging the jug up to his lips once more. The other man slashed his hand down at roughly the same point that another whistle noise emerged around the run-down shack they had concluded their business within.

Thick and hot blood splashed the side of Potter's face as the other man gurgled faintly, his own brown eyes widened in disbelief as the head tilted down to look at the black tip hanging from the front of his ribcage.

It did not stay there for long.

The two men in the shadows rushed forward after their initial shock at the unseen assault, now intending to at least finish off their target before whatever happened to them happened to them.

Potter would remember that, in this era, the samurai spiritual code of Bushido was inherent in anyone stupid enough to draw a sword, himself included these days depending on his sobriety, and that just because a weapon could emerge from nowhere and kill their commander, the mook's beneath him would not flee from this mystical display of talent as they once had before.

He made sure to gut them together to finish the misery, then stirred from the blood soaked floor and kicked the nearest body part off his legs to rise and take over the seat of the former effeminate male.

Two or three pulls off his jug later and he remembered that it was just as much illegal to murder someone now as it had been where he came from, especially so if they had the governments say-so to put you down in the first place and you still happened to deny their desire.

"Huh. Guess that puts it at... five, now."

* * *

><p>Thick rain drops ran down into his hair like sludge, carrying with them the cheap tar often used to hold the tiles down. As a result and more than once he had been rapped smartly over the head when too-much tar was finally pulled free.<p>

He made sure to wander closer to the open after that whenever it happened, but by the time he got to another block he was usually retreating back toward the edge of the vendors and vicarious shops trying to offer him everything from tea to towels, wooden masks to fishing rods, and the more savory-smelling pork hanging over a wood stove fire.

As he didn't have so much as a modern yen or whatever the hell they called the coins in this time to his name, he was forced to ignore anything that might have proven useful and wander on, slipping in and out of paying customers as his stomach groaned piteously.

Sake was good for dulling his emotions, but it rarely filled the stomach for very long, and what gold jewelry he had scavenged off of the corpses was too valuable to depreciate by selling for a single days meal, no matter how much his stomach disagreed; he remembered that lesson well.

Their swords, now, that might fetch him something if he could ever find the right owner in this myriad of shops.

Another tile hit him on the side of the head, and for one furious moment as he stared at the ground, coming to a complete halt, he felt a clarity of anger ignite within his mind telling him to just burn it and any other loose tiles to the ground.

He indulged in the emotion for another satisfying moment or two before pushing past it with another sip of his jug- the amazement he felt over replenishing the supply over and over again long gone.

After a few more moments the fire was quenched and he kept going, blinking around for some sign of advertising or someone offering weapons for sale.

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes passed in the downpour before he found a dingy looking tent. He mumbled through the local mandarin as his eyes squinted, taking in the message slowly, and after close to a minute he nodded and stepped through the open flaps.<p>

If he had thought that his own appearance was run-down and depressing, he found that of the man inside even worse off, and if Mad-eye Moody ever possessed a Japanese ancestor, it must have been the man slung into the multitude of overlapping cloth cushions like a make-shift chair.

Both legs were cut off beneath the thighs, and of his arms, only one was still fully attached and capable of touching the wares on display with three of original four fingers and thumb.

A patch over one eye barely covered a still-visible scar overflowing from the eyebrow down to the cheek, and most of his teeth were missing. Neither ear was still attached, though the flesh where they should have been was heavily scarred as well.

Just the mere sight of this living ruin made him want to turn around and back away, and he had done a decent degree of maiming himself.

"What can I do for you?" the merchant requested haltingly, more whistling than anything else around his sunken lips, but the spell in place understood the meaning well enough to explain to him.

Potter reached into his muddied cloak and slowly pulled out first one and than the other of the two blades there, offering them hilt-first and pinching the weapon by the flat sides as he set them down on the table.

The ruined salesmen examined each sword from the end of the hilt and the fine, diamond-weaved pattern of cloth wrapped and tied tightly in place, to the smooth and polished edge with only a few chips marring the surface at the tips.

He set them down with the rest of his assorted weaponry and fished around inside of the cloths holding him up, rummaging until the always welcome clink of coins occurred. Deft fingers pried the sack open and drew out a carefully measured handful of slightly grime coated coins.

Potter took them without a second glance or concern over how much of a loss he had just suffered- another lesson hard learned from his ignorance in the beginning.

He pocketed the coins and flicked his head in an imitation of a half-bow, the only such honor he ever bothered to give and only then toward merchants like this who would accept his trade and give him the means of continual survival.

He turned and stepped out under the minimal roof keeping the rain from reaching the canvas tent beneath and looked out upon the heavy rain as if it were a personal pain just to walk out into it, and to sate that misery he brought the sake jug back to his lips for a long pull before he sighed and began to back-trace his steps toward a meat dealer.

* * *

><p>Some days later and he had heard no rumor of the police searching for another murderer, which in and of itself was strange. He had killed at least twice before since arrival here four months ago, and after each encounter within days more so than hours someone had stumbled over the body and started screaming like a maniac.<p>

After that, yes, within hours the local police-samurai were on the investigation and look-out for anyone crossing through the districts. He was exceptionally lucky that his first time, his wand hadn't broken in the skirmish before he could cast a permanent non-sticking spell to his robes, insuring the blood dripped off like water and left little stain behind, but that luck hadn't lasted through his second incident.

He had bought the saki jug just to dull his nerves and calm down between the two encounters, and having already conjured up the cheap gold for it, he drew the line at depriving actual paying customers of the rich fluid and set about with the refilling charm instead when it drew near to empty.

After that his magic ran out, more or less, when his wand was cut in two while brandishing it and summoning the other mans katana. The outburst of magic and flame as the holly and phoenix feather construct was neatly split down the middle did something permanent to the weapon, however.

He could still summon it wandlessly from where-ever he had it stored at for the time, and some months after the initial screw up the effect didn't seem to be fading anytime soon. He usually kept it around somewhere out of sight when he stopped for the time and used it like he had last for a quick and efficient death sentence.

* * *

><p>Blade of the Immortal!Harry. I intended this to be my Crossover entry a few months ago on Dark Lord Potter, but scrapped it in favor of Sirius Interruptions and Curse of Hamunaptra.<p> 


	8. 8: XO 3 Angel

"Mr Potter, my name is Lilah Morgan and I represent Wolfram and Hart law firm. We have an offer for you." A smooth feminine voice intoned rather calmly, given the situation.

Harry's dark emerald gaze flashed in the new-comers direction as if in disbelief, then ducked his head to avoid the returned spell fire from his opponent.

The woman was standing around in a sharp business suit and had a placating, if slightly domineering, smile on her face as chaos exploded all around the battlefield in which she now stood.

'I'm losing it.' He thought and promptly dismissed her as a hallucination brought on by the adrenaline high and blood loss coupled with his general lack of sleep over the last two days.

He leaned around the barricade of rock acting as a very useful shield and sent off three silent Sectumsempra's in the opposing direction and nodded in satisfaction at the howl of pain that accompanied his action- until she spoke up again.

"Honestly, Mr Potter, it would be in your best interests to pay attention to what I have to say," she tried again. He scowled and, after a moments hesitation, dashed out from the rock in time to dodge the dark yellow implosion curse hurtling toward his former hiding spot thanks to another Death Eater's wand.

It made a most spectacular whoosh of noise and shower of flaming, jagged edged rock shards. Two of which embedded in his shoulders half an inch, drawing a grimace and snarl through clenched teeth, before his slashed his wand over one arm and banished them from his flesh- another grunt followed his momentary fire-whip to cauterize the wounds, and then he was charging forward again.

"Very well. We will be in touch, Mr Potter, once you have sorted this mess out." The same woman's voice called down to him, and he squared his shoulders in irritation despite the pain it brought on.

His shield charm nullified another retaliatory gesture and he hacked off their arm on the return. 

* * *

><p>Some time later, as the sun bled over the horizon and drenched the scene of mass death and destruction in its crimson and orange hues, and Harry Potter leaned back against the lone surviving slab of stone that had once stood in a circle of similar such stones- Stone Henge itself.<p>

In his left hand he held the remnants of a small golden and black tea cup, upon which was reflected the coat of arms for Helga Hufflepuff's clan at the school. Flickers of gray smoke curled up into the morning air as the last remnants of the Horcrux were purified and eliminated from this world.

He swept one arm across his brow to clear it of the accumulated dirt, fresh and dried blood from his cracked open scar, and the occasional splash of his enemies own life fluids.

For the most part he just made it dirtier. "Well done, Mr Potter." Spoke up the same voice as earlier that morning. He turned his head slowly in that direction and felt his jaws clench at the serene crispness of her clothing and posture, looking as at-ease as ever.

"You aren't real, so bugger off." He ordered flatly. After all the mind-games Voldemort had put him through thanks to that damnable curse scar link they shared, he wouldn't be surprised to find out this was just another exploit to destabilize his mentality in a moment of abject weakness- he was exhausted in every sense of the word, missing nearly a quart of blood, and numb from sleep loss.

If he was in his right state of mind, the pain alone should have felled him by now. The woman just scoffed at him. "I am very much real and, as I told you two and a half hours ago, in a position to offer you something of great value." She responded.

"Are you, now? And just who the hell are you? I wasn't paying attention the first time around." He bit out furiously.

She didn't quite smile, but the look in her eyes shone in a way he had often seen Professor Dumbledore's own do years ago when he said something of interest or wit.

"Something like that... are you paying attention this time?" she asked him. He threw the broken Horcrux at her and watched as she snatched it out of the air, stared at the object for a moment with that same gleam, and pocketed it.

"Thank you, this will prove quite useful even if you say no," she said and then looked back up and into his eyes. "My name is Lilah Morgan and I represent Wolfram and Hart law firm. We can offer you aide in the collection of the remaining Horcruxes, including how to find them and what security measures are in place." She told him in a clearer voice that was no longer as... soft, almost mocking.

Harry pushed up away from the stone and pointed his wand at her head. "Right. The only person who happens to know that information is Voldemort, and with this," he tapped the partially open scar on his forehead painfully, drawing a grimace, "I can find out everything I need to know on the matter over time. So you can take your offer and go bugger yourself with it." He said firmly.

She stared at the stick of wood as if it were an irritable distraction, but nodded. "So your response is no. Very well. Take the next few months to reconsider- we'll know when you do." And just as quickly as she had appeared, she turned and began to walk off, vanishing into the darkness some ways off.

* * *

><p>Another challenge response from Dark Lord Potter. Crossover with Angel.<p> 


	9. 9: Of drunken wizards and dragons

"_Another _one?" Harry asked reluctantly, watching the title flicker out before the rising glow of the sun, high above the atypical Scottish village.

Ron groaned. "Harry, can't you just be satisfied and enjoy the film?" He asked in return.

_Not in particularly, no,_ Harry thought, _given we've seen just about every sword and sorcery muggle fantasy film since they first developed the art a century ago._

Aloud, he said, "How about something different next time? Something without a lumbering, flame-breathing beast?"

Neville spoke up before Ron could. "Does Godzilla count? I thought you didn't have anything against him, though_..._"

Harry brought up his bottle of butterbeer and chugged it down as he thought. _Good on you, Neville, prodding a hole in my argument._

He was silent long enough for the other two men, one his fellow Auror, and the other a Professor at the school, to turn up the volume and begin playing the film again.

"_Actually, _Godzilla was more of an atomic-energy kind of monster. Nice try, but I'm not nursing a bottle of fire whiskey this time, guys." He interrupted with a soft smirk curving up the edges of his lips.

"_Dammit, Harry!_" Ron bellowed in frustration. "Fine!_ You_ pick out the film next time, you bloody arse!"

Harry leaned over and flicked his empty bottle into the bin next to the telly. "Agreed_. Reign of Fire._" He stated almost as soon as his best mate finished.

Both of the other men frowned at him, and Neville actually lit his wand with a quiet "_Lumos,_" before asking, "Isn't that another film you despise?"

"No. At least they got the details right that time, I could almost swear they had a muggleborn from the Tournament on as graphic artist." He answered.

"Oi! Will you just conjure the fire whiskey and let us get on with this?" Ron interjected before the conversation could derail any further.

"Right-o, ol' chap_._" Harry mock-responded, already holding a pre-transfigured and shrunken bottle in one hand as he poured into a shot-glass held in the other.

With a grimace Ron pressed down on the _play_ button and resignedly sank back into the couch.

* * *

><p>Screams rent the air as fire and flame spread in thick, billowing streams across the low level hovels and otherwise pitiful looking shacks.<p>

Dissolute squalor encompassed the low lying village in all its burning glory, and men, women, and children were snapped up into the surging rush of it all indiscriminately.

"Pass the bottle back, Neville_,_" a quiet voice intoned at the same point as a great, red leather-winged beast descended from on high and spewed another torrent from its jowls.

"_Ssh!_" Another voice complained as the dying screams suddenly grew louder.

Almost unheard came the clink of glass brushing against alike before a bottle passed in front of the beasts nose.

"_Harry!_" The same voice as before bitched as the action before them suddenly and violently halted, then seemed to flow in reverse for several lengthy seconds until the obstruction was out of sight.

The initial speaker shrugged as he leaned forward and downed the remainder in one slow, loud gulp, straight from the neck.

An exasperated sigh rang out before the action halted once again.

"_Look_, Harry, if you want to get drunk off your arse, by all means. That's what these nights off are_ for_. But at least cast a _silencing charm_ on yourself so the _rest of us_ can watch the movie in peace!" Neville, ever the mediator in these things, piped up for the umpteenth time that night.

Harry shrugged noncommittally, then brought up his old and worn holly wand, and a moment and two swishes later he mouthed something noiselessly at the other two on the blue couch.

Neville smiled wearily, then turned back to the third member of their troop and waited.

The large red lizard leaned down and snapped up a hastily crawling child between its ivory fangs, swallowing in two efficient crunches and a gush of blood spilling over the rugged lips.

* * *

><p>Half an hour later and the second conjured bottle had finally penetrated his occlumency shields.<p>

He watched as the lone survivor of the doomed village dove from the overhanging ledge of the cave and onto the back of the red scaled dragon's upper back, then as he grappled with a set of spines emerging from the sides of its neck for support, all the while struggling not to be spun off into what would surely be a fatal landing.

The action was sufficient for a muggle-made film, but compared to the real-life equivalents available throughout the world, it was a poor substitute.

And he _would _know, having done it before his eighteenth birthday in the middle of a large scale spell-assault inside of an underground cavern.

Compared to _that_, what the would-be-hero had just done was about the same as wrangling up an irritated Hippogriff; dangerous if you were lazy, but not of the same magnitude.

As the furious struggle continued on screen, his mind and the fierce ale lead him toward other thoughts regarding dragons, and in particular back to the time of his fourth year at Hogwarts.

A rough smile graced his lips as he remembered, briefly closing his eyes as the details came to mind a little hazily.

The sheer_ terror_ invoked at the Horntail's presence, bearing down menacingly over her nest of eggs and breathing out threads of sharp gray smoke; her yellowed eyes, narrow and fierce above the long maw, and the way they tracked his movements.

The _exhilaration _of racing among her spouts of brilliant, orange and yellow flame, and feeling the rush of scorched air press against his arms and face, weaving a deadly display of close calls and near misses.

And, of course, snatching the golden victory-egg from the heart of her nest and slipping past the whistle of talons, as long as his forearm, as they sank toward his unguarded backside.

_Good times,_he thought, as his eyes flickered back open, and he felt a disappointment ring in his heart as the dragon on the telly thrashed and spun the poor sap off, only to see the man dashed against the rocks below.

Something within him changed at the sight of it, kindling a desire to relive the sensation, to succeed where the character before him had just failed.

One too many muggle fantasy films had finally done the inevitable to his sense of reasoning, Harry thought through the light buzz of fire whiskey- he was going to saddle and ride that bloody Horntail, even if it killed him.

And he knew just the man to contact to set the situation up.

* * *

><p>"How in the hell did you convince me to go along with this, again?" Charlie Weasley asked quietly, well aware of the slumbering dragon a couple of hundred feet ahead of them and her abundantly sensitive hearing.<p>

Harry shrugged. "Two failed Killing Curses, mate? Five encounters with Voldemort? Ten more years of hard Auror trials besides?" He answered.

Charlie grimaced. "You weren't drunk during any of those events, now were you?" He asked heavily.

"I'm a mean drunk, Charles. I'll firewhip her ass if she gets antsy, or _Imperius_. Don't look at me like that- I've contested Voldemort's mind enough times, I think I can handle whatever she has inside of that thick skull." Harry shot back, already leaving a low red trail in the dirt in preparation.

Charlie paused him with a hand on the left shoulder. "Harry, whatever this is, you shouldn't let it push you into going forward. You're too young for a mid-life crisis, but I can't honestly label it anything else."

Harry shrugged loose. "I've already been killed before, you know. The second time the curse hit me, in the forest. I'm not afraid of facing down the old man a third time."

Silence hung in the air between them at that for a long few seconds, before the other man sighed and hefted the leather harness in his other hand over one shoulder.

"She won't stay down for more than a few seconds once this touches her back, and I can guarantee you fire and claws are going to come the instant the straps reach her belly," he said. "You need to be up and running before that moment."

Harry grinned. "That the way to do it. Your count." He said.

"Don't make me have to write mum with your demise, Potter," Charlie ordered with a grimace, and at the fierce look he received, brought the saddle into the air with his wand and began to levitate it slowly forward.

"Three... two... _one..._"

Ten seconds later, the roar echoed off of the cavern walls and down among the hills for a half a mile around.

Atop it, the exhilarated screams of a young adult wizard, spanning much, much farther in the minutes ahead.

* * *

><p>Another challenge response from DLP, my own to be honest. I went over the initial word-count by about four hundred or so words.<p>

Line: **One too many muggle fantasy films had finally done the inevitable to his sense of reasoning, Harry thought through the light buzz of fire whiskey- he was going to saddle and ride that bloody Horntail even if it killed him**


	10. 10: Traitor Filch?

Fingers drummed along the cottage desk, impatience clear within the rough staccato beat they made.

"All clear, see? I dun want no part of a bleeding mess to clean up, not even the wretched brats and their blood, unnerstand?" The target of said fingers gave his rough response.

A robe slid open and a parchment was set down on the table before them. The man blinked and reached up a hairy hand to grasp it, then break open the wax seal with a grimace.

He certainly wasn't as young as he used to be, and constantly chasing down the ungrateful, unworthy little monsters with their dirty shoes, their owl droppings, and their continual skirmishes and messes was not a task he could easily perform at this point of his life.

His eyes scanned through the details of the contract and he blanched for a moment, but the thought of never having to scrub the floors and wall clean again left him feeling mingled elation along with the steadfast fury throbbing against his pulse.

"Where do I sign?" He finally asked. Again, the robe slid open and this time a dark green looking quill was drawn free and offered toward him, tip first.

A scowl etched into his expression as he took up the object and felt the slight tendrils of unsavory magic lying in its hold, promising him great retribution for such a little cost... of blood.

Oh yes, he knew of Blood Quills quite well, having utilized them in his youth to torture those who got uppity and defiled the heavier sections of the school, sections where he had been forced to spend rigorous hours on a compromised scaffold system.

He could have remained in his cramped rooms and left it to a bloody House-elf! If he had only _known_ such malignant little demons were pervading the school so thoroughly, he could have tried to rope many of them into his control to speed up the miserable hours and nights at work, but that knowledge, that amazing set of details, had been carefully concealed from him by the very man that, until that night, he had still held some measure of respect toward.

He looked down at the dotted lines and scrawled his name in, feeling the burning itch trickle across the back of his signing-hand tightly until he was through.

Then he dropped the quill down and looked up at the man facing him. "Very good, Argus Filch. Very good. You shall not be disappointed."

Filch's scowl deepened. "So I've been told all me bleeding life. I'll believe it when I see it!" He stated.

The man's fingers picked up their previous beat as if in irritation before they suddenly darted forward and scooped up the items between them. "We shall be in touch when the time comes. Make no mistake, Argus Filch, _he_ _will return_; the Mark burns brighter with every day."

The chair slid back as the man stood up, but he paused and snapped his fingers. Instantly a faint _pop_ filtered through the buzzing noise everyone else in the room within hearing distance of their table heard, and a pair of pained eyes peered up at the creatures master fearfully.

"Kremlin, gather your siblings and assist Argus Filch in his duties. I will know if you disobey, wretched beast, and we both know what that entails." He ordered it, and the House-elf shrunk even further in upon itself with a whimper.

"Good night, _Caretaker_," the man stated with a flicker of sardonic pleasure entering his voice. Filch grimaced and waved the good bye away like a pesky fly, focused as he was upon the set of misery filled eyes glancing back and forth between the two of them quickly.

The possibilities available to the Squib began to race throughout his mind.

* * *

><p>Many years later, and Argus Filch had succeeded rather nicely from his usual misery induced existence.<p>

The best times of his life were during Headmistress Umbrige's rule of the school, though for pretenses sake then and all throughout the previous years he had been forced to imitate his usual helplessness with magic.

Kremlin died within a year of service, but the remaining two brothers served him all the harder for it, and by the time Lord Voldemort had indeed announced his return to the world proper, laying claim to the Ministry, he had all but worn them to the bone as well.

Students were caught out oft and easily by them, and they in turn delivered into his own hands, where he was able to put to use the numerable and, by far, _proper_ tools of education under the lenient eyes of Alecto Carrow during the first few weeks of service.

It was rather unfortunate that her masochistic lust outweighed his own by such a large margin, or he might have retained that ability, but Headmaster Snape seemed to insist on relegating his time toward other goals after the first month of term.

* * *

><p>Shock raced throughout Argus mind as he watched Lord Voldemort fall before his own, reflected, Killing Curse. <em>No!<em> He screamed out silently, staring at the future he had envisioned flicker around the edges before fading away entirely.

It made no sense that the Potter brat could possibly topple the one man who had allowed his life some purpose and satisfaction again, a man whom lesser folk would vilify further with their preaching cries about _justice_, and _righteousness_, and other such murtlap essence.

Oh, he had no doubts about what Lord Voldemort did, but he had faithfully upheld _Dumbledore's_ standard for over half of his life, all for _nothing_ given the House-elves crawling over every other inch of the school and working on tasks. He wasn't even needed! The old man had played him for a fool, how as it not right to change sides and assist the Dark Lord and his servants in acquiring precious information about the schools measures?

But no. No, _Potter_, _the chosen one_, had to trample across his happiness just as the multitude of generations before him had done.

He continued to stare in shock for some time before swallowing his anger and despair. There was no remaining as he was. He would have to step back into the Light, even if only as another pretense.

* * *

><p>Another challenge response, this time by GL.<p>

Line: **_Write me a canon-compliant short about a Light-aligned canon character of your choice who was actually working for the Death Eaters all along, and got away with it._**


	11. 11: Azkaban Harry

They say the mind can be just as effective a prison as solid cement and steel, only several times as worse.

They also say that the prisoners who are sent to this prison don't die from the starvation, or the cold suffusing every inch of the surface available, but rather the loss of will that comes after the unending mental scarring and torment invoked.

Some are so weak willed that they last just days, while others have held on for months at a time.

My godfather, Sirius Black, had endured over a decade before his own succumbing to their grasping claws.

I had few edges over those being brought here except for the clues left behind in his unsent letters during that tenor here. The former Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one of the greatest minds of our age, had passed those letters on to me toward Sirius' final days as a last request.

I had never read them until just a few short days ago. I wished I had; it would have given a better connection to the man who had been so close to escape before they sucked out his soul and hung the corpse out to dry as a warning to all those who would arrive thereafter of the price to pay.

When you come to Azkaban, they search your body for magical artifacts and hold your wand in reserve until the last straw, so that they can destroy whatever hopes you might have still had if they find anything.

I had taken the opportunity to graft what I needed into my own body. However, when I say that, I don't mean in a physical sense; Sirius had mentioned the aid his own memories had served him, as well as served to be used against him, without having ever learned Occlumency.

I already had a degree in the art from my years at school, but I also had something better still; a link with the Headmaster. He was a grand figure from another time, a man not made for the stress of war in his golden years, and it ultimately put him in a grave before his due.

In his will he left me several items for the war in which I was later classified as a War Criminal for, but that is a tale for another time and ultimately irrelevant to my current narration.

The greatest object for what has come is the Pensieve he gifted to me. It was a long and truly arduous prospect to sort and sift through my memories and categorize that which would haunt my days to come and those I should cherish and retain, but for nearly every waking hour for every waking day of a week I scoured deeply and thoroughly back to my earliest days alive.

When they finally found and captured me at the muggle residence, I was a blank slate of blissful high, complying with their desires and vicious cues without a care in the world.

When they sentenced me and drugged me upon Veritaserum to get their answers, my lips gave unbidden no secret of mine, for no memory remained to accurately derive from.

For all intents and purposes I was a hollowed shell of the man they wanted to persecute and be rid of, and if they had retained even a shred of Albus Dumbledore's personality among them that might have been enough to sate their appetite.

It was less than even a fool's hope, however, to believe that my seeming mental degradation would see my sentence altered to Saint Mungo's; Fudge declared Azkaban, and the Wizengamot Jury agreed.

For days the Dementor's sat around my cell and feasted upon the warmth and joy of my mind, and I ran around from my greatest and happiest moments into some that were, at worst, mildly misguided and muddled with confusion.

The trapdoors and pitfalls I had set into place had yet to be stumbled upon and string me along as I suspected would be required, to follow in Sirius footsteps to freedom that had ultimately been cut short.

Truly, how long I remained in such a way I could not tell you. I had no calender on hand and no thought of what one was besides, and so the concept to mark out my delirious days in any manner was a foreign concept at that stage.

When they delivered the platters of gruel and water I ate with empty melancholy over the taste, and indeed this became one of my more dissatisfying memories to repeat over and over again.

In time the Dementors grew full off of my mind and began to come less and less often to crouch before my cell, slothful and resilient to commands, and without their deliberating presence the first steps began to come back.

I slept and dreamed a broken sequence of events, and when I awoke, only the strongest of those details remained, but it was such that began to return and linger in the back of my mind and settle into the required pattern.

Days crept by with a piece here, a piece there, coming together in greater and greater results.

I had no idea what it meant then, not until the time when the Dementor's stopped coming altogether; fattened up and full for the first time since they had been employed, they refused to wander the other halls of the prison again and set forth to be freed, to breed.

For the first time since they were employed, the Dementor's rebelled, and human guards were forced to wander and keep check on the place.

Without the threat of their souls being stolen away, and against Fudges wishes, the initial law rebuffing visitors except for under dying circumstances was repelled; all part of the grander pattern I had set into motion before arriving here, as I would come to find out.

My first visitor came a month after the fact.

* * *

><p>"Blimey, Harry, what did they do to you?" the other wizards voice asked quietly.<p>

I looked up at him in mild interest, smiling as I remembered him from our vague days at school. "Hello, Neville," I greeted him.

The guard nearby tapped his wand impatiently against his thigh as the five minute time slot allotted to me continued to dwindle.

"Er, could you give us a minute? You've already searched me, I don't have anything to slip him!" Neville asked the guard quickly as the flat thump continued to echo off others thigh at a regular beat.

"Don't see why I should, boy. You've got something to tell him, you can share it with the rest of the class," the older man stated neutrally. Neville stood up a little straighter.

"With due respect, what have you done for our society? What were you doing when _V-Voldemort_was in control of the Ministry?" he asked with a hard note in his voice.

The guard flinched at the sound of the name, posture straightening out as he stamped a foot to the ground. "Dammit, boy, don't speak that name here! You'll have the whole floor chanting it in due time!"

Neville's eyes flickered with an uncertain emotion. "What name? _V-Voldemort?_" he asked with a raise of his voice. The man in the cell next to me repeated the name including the stutter at the start.

"_V-Voldemort?_" he asked, and repeated it as Neville said it again, and each time I watched the guard flinch again with a growing flustered panic.

"_V-Voldemort?_" Neville repeated louder still, and in less than fifteen seconds everyone around us was likewise chanting the name exactly as predicted, varying in one pitch to another.

The guard slapped his hands over his ears and began to tremble as his own memories surged against him unbidden by the constant repetition.

We both watched him sink to his knees before Neville drew a small cloth from his robes and ran it under his nose. A moment later he sneezed violently into his hand, and I watched in curiosity as a silver glow was left behind in the palm.

He gave me an apologetic glance before kneeling down and pressing the stuff against the aura. A concentric ripple appeared as the mysterious substance slipped through and wafted over the air toward my position.

I glanced up at him as Neville mouthed the words, "_Snort it!_" with a pained look on his face. I brought the light-as-air material up and sniffed at it and soon felt it drift up and into my head.

Almost as soon I felt a sudden weight on my mind and leaned back against my cot in confusion. "_Good luck_, _Harry_," Neville mouthed again before turning away to face the back-up sprinting down the hall toward our position.

"What are you doing?" the middle-aged Auror on hand demanded of Neville and the downed guard as one, wand flashing with red light as spells soared into the adjacent cells to quiet them down again.

Neville shrugged in a remarkable show of no interest. "Teaching a smug arsehole a lesson. Harry isn't the one who should be in that cell, and we all know that." He responded.

The Auror gripped Neville by one of his sleeves and dragged him off, and I wondered what the substance was and why my mind still felt foggy for it.

* * *

><p>In days I understood. It took almost a week for the effects to materialize, but by that point I had been checked several times over to try and ensure nothing had been changed.<p>

The microgram of increased weight of new memories flowing in couldn't be detected, and nor did they bundle together in a way that would show up at that point.

When I slept again after the final examination, I dreamed a new dream from the altered pattern. The lone Dementor that could be wrangled back under their control and was posted outside of my cell ate its usual fill, but it had indigestion from the creep of unpleasantness filtered through that time.

When I awoke, I was still as joyful as ever, but beneath my conscious thoughts the memories, the triggers I had left behind, began to come together with the addition returned to me from Neville.

Whenever the Dementor drew near, I lapsed back into empty bliss that was only slightly ill-afflicted, but once it had been replaced again by a wizard guard the puzzle turned just that little bit further, nudged me along another millimeter at a time.

Neville never again visited me while I was held at Azkaban. Fudge had taken another stab at those who had once been my allies in the war and prohibited any I had once knew and might have been relying on from visiting.

I had no way of knowing this until the guard assigned to my cell said as much over a bottle of firewhiskey months after the fact, taunting me as if I knew what the purpose was in my state. When I cheerfully congratulated Fudge on the idea, the guard threw his half-empty bottle at my head in frustration and we both watched it crash to the floor amid a chorus of noise.

* * *

><p>I awoke one morning to find an unknown man looking down on me from just beyond the reach of my cell. His look was one I could not place, but his eyebrows were locked together in an awkward arch beneath his tousled blond hair.<p>

"Awake at last, Potter," he said to me in a neutral tone. On either side of him stood a red-clad Auror. I did not recognize who he was, but he apparently knew me.

"I've been waiting _months_ to get this chance to confront you, Potter. Do try to stay aware of your surroundings for the remainder of our five minutes."

I leaned forward and stared at him curiously. "You may have _vanquished_ the _dark lord_, but you haven't _severed_ _all the ties_ he left behind to our world. Even if you do ever get released from this prison, you'll have your hands tied trying to find _a role _to fall back into," he told me.

In the back of my mind I recognized what he was saying beneath his words. I leaned closer to the edge of the cell.

He glanced at the left-most Auror. "How mangled in his brain? If this was the Potter I knew, he would have been retaliating by now with whatever he had on hand, even just sniping back with words; how am I supposed to get any satisfaction out of this one-way banter?" he demanded.

The Auror glanced at a pocket-watch without answering. For whatever reason the other wizard ground his teeth together. "I'm paying a tenth of his salary and I'd like the compensation the Minister told me I would have! At least give me my wand so I can make this fool scream again!"

The Auror looked back at his watch for a moment before nodding. "The Minister also set a particular amount of instructions... Dawlish is no longer employed for failing with Longbottom the last time, and I may not be as qualified as Dawlish, but I don't think his loss was as bad as he made it out to be," he said before putting his watch away and turning back down the hall.

"I'll be in the back for another five minutes, and I expect you to do what you will and finish it up by the time I return. Getting fired for incompetence is better than another sentence in this place- Shacklebolt, give him the wand."

The second Auror looked to be in the same state of unknown emotion as the blond had displayed when he looked at me, but after a moment he drew out the required wand and handed it over.

This time an expression of glee lit up the wizards face as he pressed the tip against the barrier around my cell and finally slid it through a fraction.

"I'm going to dearly enjoy this, Potter," he told me in the same tone. I just smiled back at him.

* * *

><p>When the original Auror returned almost ten minutes after he had first departed, Draco's work had been done. I hadn't expected to rely on him or the life debt incurred earlier in our lives, but he had stepped up to fulfill my true friend's roles here while the decree passed by Fudge remained firm as ever.<p>

Blood dripped past my lips where my teeth had bit into them and an after-ache was present from arching my body into twisted shapes for his amusement, and the evidence of a job well done met the Auror's eyes when he examined the scene.

"I was about to clean him up, but I'm satisfied with what I've done. If you still want to be fired, I can arrange that in return for this favor," Draco told him.

The Auror flicked his own wand and my lip resealed itself up, but he left my cloths stained in red and did nothing for the shaking in my bones and muscles.

"You do that, Mister Malfoy. Just remind the Minister that I have _other_ skills that could be put to better use _out of here_."

Draco waved a hand neutrally and offered his wand back up. "Good riddance, Potter."

I weakly waved at him as the Auror lead the others away.

When I slept that night, the rest of the problems filtered through to the surface. I was another several steps closer, but I knew it would be impossible to escape from here just yet. For that, I would have to rely on the rest of the outside details to converge together.

Before I had come in to Azkaban, I knew I would be searched and broken; Fudge was too petty a man to allow me to be sentenced without the drama he had tried to instill in my fifth year at Hogwarts to be repeated within and without the court.

Sirius' letters helped confirm what my path had to be at that time while I was still free; I could have fought back and, yes, ultimately defeated Fudge and his regime the same as I had undone Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But in doing so I would have proven his lies true.

A war of spells was not the answer I could seek here, not without the resources set up in advance to sustain me and hide the more serious repercussions.

It would have to be the same battlefield that he himself had taken to heart and chosen for us that I would fight upon. A broken opponent had to be the first move, to become as if a King who was left with no more defenses than a single pawn or two against a full field of Bishops, Knights, and Queens.

That is what I had put into motion during the week leading up to my discovery and capture at Godrics Hollow, so that I could present the appearance as truly as possible.

The rest of my memories- those of the war, those of my trials and tribulations within Hogwarts and against Voldemort besides during that brief prelude before fourth year, all the thoughts I had possessed of an unpleasant disposition I extracted and sealed away.

I portkeyed them to my friends and allies with the knowledge that they each required to align with the secondary section of retaliation against what was to come.

I couldn't have done any of it without my godfathers letters. I would have gone in not knowing what the Dementors were truly capable of, having never before suffered under their presences as Sirius had for over ten years.

I would have become another empty wreck as the torments of my slim nineteen years upon the earth were exploited and brought to full relief within my mind, even with the Occlumency shields I possessed to help filter through the quivering mire of dread and dismemberment.

Instead I had rendered the worst tool this prison had to offer all but obsolete and forced Fudge to reinstate useless human guardians to wander the cell blocks and keep the other prisoners in check, those too foolish and easily influenced to the right settings.

It helped that I was sealed into the very same cell that had held Sirius- of that I recognized quite clearly after Draco's visit.

Perhaps Fudge had hoped it would be a sense of irony, or perhaps he merely felt like being the shriveled coward he was and couldn't resist getting the metaphorical final word in against me after the mockery of a trial in my undeniably happy state of being.

Regardless, I was returning to a state of wholeness again. I remembered my lessons at Professor Dumbledore's hands, his _eyes _if you will, and my training in the mental arts to fortify against external assault.

The very prison I had formed of my own memories coming in simply became another layer in which I could defend myself with if they ever came again to probe my thoughts.

* * *

><p>Days crept by as I awoke back into who I was and used to be one stage at a time. My expression of loose pleasure at simply breathing and being alive grew wrinkled around the edges as I recovered from the damage Draco had inflicted to my body, in part a necessary action and in part a final stroke of spite for having defended his life when it counted.<p>

The Auror who had allowed Draco his time never returned, much like the former-Auror John Dawlish.

In the outer world another round of political attrition was in play, but even I was surprised at how swiftly the next change came about. While visitors were officially allowed under proper circumstances, the addition was a costly one in its initial and then secondary drafts for me personally.

The third version prohibited anyone in a legal position of holding law from restricting the rights of the individual witch or wizard from approaching the island.

It was repealed two nights after it slipped into the system, but while it was there I was rewarded with another visitor and an update on the way of things.

* * *

><p>With the natural buffers of my more pleasant memories set up first and foremost before my Occlumency shields, the occasional Dementor arrival did little to off set me.<p>

When the human guards returned, I did not banter back with them in any noticeably different manner, smiling and laughing along with their sharp retorts until all pleasure they could derive from our conversations dissolved back into silent anger.

Behind the facade I waited and worked out what was to come. Being sent to Azkaban was an inevitable conclusion and the first stage, and the finale and progression into the second stage was already underway with every day that ticked away.

It amazed me that Fudge actually thought he could get away with this, no matter how much sway he had built up in the Wizengamot in the two years since the war concluded- I was not without allies and alliances from those darker times that were still firmly intact.

I certainly couldn't deny the charges of Unforgivable usage, but the loophole of Fudges predecessor from the first war was what I was relying on to get me out of here.

I just had to wait and bide my time until it was pressed forward, and knowing my friends, I had little doubt it would take longer than another few months with the deck so stacked against them.

* * *

><p>A year can change a man in ways he could not have previously imagined- I thought that I had planned out everything accordingly.<p>

The first several months I had been a bundle of pleasant cheer, but the remaining six after Draco's visit had given me more than I anticipated to hold here.

When I slept, the war returned. My Occlumency shields could do little to defend against the inner sanctum of chaos where the mind wanders unguarded during slumber.

I awoke covered in a cold sweat with out even remembering why, only the distant red gleam of a terrifying gaze staring forth from the shadows.

I stayed awake the rest of the day and night to ensure my facade hadn't fallen.

It happened again off and on throughout the week, with varying intensity to torment me with. I could not scream for risk of revealing my hand at this point, but it was not something I could easily hold back, and in my weakness the occasional guard caught the noise of a rough sob from my cell.

When I awoke on those next mornings, I was examined thoroughly- to no avail. Occlumency kept the good on the surface and blocked it from reaching the depths where darkness swallowed my true self whole.

After a month I took to sleeping with a section of my shirt pressed into my mouth and turned up beneath the chilling cot to hide that fact.

After two I began to stay up for days at a time, using the frozen water dripping in to help shock me back from the edge.

Eventually I did not sleep at all.

I drifted in and out of a waking dream, altering the depths of my mental shielding and weaving it out in rough spirals, so that the war was suddenly interrupted by scarlet sunsets seen from the top of Gryffindor Tower or a night spent out by the lake before being roughly re-immersed.

* * *

><p>An Azkaban story meant to be a successor to a previous Sirius-themed entry. The idea that memories were the most capable weapon against the prisoners of Azkaban eventually turned into this. I can't say I'm happy with it, but compared to my earlier drafts, at least this one went somewhere more or less and hinted to a greater story in the background.<p> 


	12. 12: Back to 1980

Snow fell loose and easily as I entered the cobblestone path, an unexpected and unlooked for interruption to the usual festivities occurring at this time of October.

Children ran among the other passageways laughing with the intensity that only youth and the oblivious are capable of manifesting, and a faded smile drew upon my lips despite the setting and events that had brought me to this village.

In another hours time, after all, it would be the twenty-first anniversary of the Potters death.

The border between the two halves of Godrics Hallow slid over my skin like a ripple of water, and as if a veil had been parted, the wizarding side was materialized out of thin air.

"Abracadabra," I said, mirthless humor in my tone, and waved my dominant hand loosely through the air as if conjuring the houses and huts that formed ahead.

Magic had long since lost the ability to impress me or deliver up something extraordinary, not after the feats demonstrated over the last ten years of my life, and this spectacle was not a new one, even if it had only been observed once, when I was seventeen.

A few folks paused on their doorsteps at the sight of me, and just as I had before, I raised a hand and waved it in greeting, though with no more value given to the act than before.

Ten minutes later and the old signpost dedicated to the loss of that night stood to attention, but I gave it no mind, and strode up the overgrown sidewalk instead.

Bits of preserved plaster and mortar dotted the lawn around me, and the threshold was black and burned.

I had to pause within the doorway and close my eyes for a moment.

Despite my intentions, despite the actions I knew would follow, the will to carry through on the act seemed to stretch long and far away from the ruin here, as if to abandon me here entirely drained and empty rather than mostly so.

I gripped the Elder wand and felt the familiar tendril of magic respond, pulsing faintly, and I nodded in resolution.

What would come would come no matter when, be it in the next hour or in the next year. Saint Mungos had confirmed it. Our lives had come to a grinding halt at this place twenty-one years ago, and it was fitting to finish them once and for all and bring the process full cycle.

Entering the living room, I examined the destruction and exhaled in a mixture of dread and equal parts relief. "Time to begin," I said needlessly, and yet the sound of my voice helped to reestablish the resolve again.

hphphp

Not quite forty-seven minutes afterward and the last stroke of the Elder wand concluded just as the first stroke of the new hour began to chime throughout the village.

I smiled, breathed in for the final time, and placed the tip of both Elder and Holly in my hands just beneath my sternum.

For the next few chimes I held that breath, reflecting on the life I had lived and lost, and as the third note rang forth my breath exhaled along with it, spilling out the final spell I had ever intended to speak.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

Green light washed over my vision even through the closed lids, and I felt a rush of cold suffuse my flesh from the point of contact.

It was said to be painless, the touch of the Killing Curse. It was supposed to be a fleeting instant as the energy of life was drawn from the flesh and released back into nature, free again.

But chains bound my energy, my soul, to this form more strongly than other mortal men and women.

The nature of the Killing Curse was thus resisted, and fought against like antibodies contesting against an invading virus, and the cold blossomed where each wand touched and sought to rise up and down further with a sensation akin to dissolving.

It brought my closed eyes together, twisted my expression into an agonizing mess, as my body itself was chewed up and broken down where the bonding process had become immutable.

I welcomed the cold as best as I mentally could, knowing that my body shouldn't be fighting this firmly or easily after the measures taken to ease the passing on, the ritual given in this scene of death to _release_ instead of _grip all the tighter _as Voldemort had sought after.

Somewhere I heard the echo of the clock chime, and my fingers pinched down on solid wood viciously, desperate to end this before the final tone and the effect given by it could fade away.

_Avada Kedavra! _I bit out silently, the focus of will barely sufficient, and another twin rupture of cold green flashed before my shut gaze.

The chains nearest cracked. I lurched forward and stabbed Elder and Holly wood through the weakening flesh, but the chill amplified and sped up into my lungs, and down into my thighs, as the energy was drawn up and released.

Distantly a haze began to accumulate around my mind, as the last chimes rang out...

_sixth_...

With the loss of certain bonds, the others linked together with what remained, pulling taut and unrelentingly against the embrace of death.

_seventh..._

Blood spilled down along my fingers for a moment, as the areas about them, my lower waist, broke down and began to fade.  
><em><br>eighth..._ _!_

Another tether sundered, and like the breaking of a dam, the others fell apart in tandem.

But it had come too late.

The last note hung in the air as the intention and will behind the spells gave in, even as the cold spread like quicksilver all the way up into my chest, throat, and even up to the hairs on my head.

And, at last, I felt what Voldemort had felt, when he was first banished from his living flesh twenty-one years before.

Only my soul and body had become as-to-one by the order of the Hallows, and the very power that created them had self-woven deeply to cement these two aspects that allowed life to exist, such that though they were returned to base energy at last, that energy could not be released as it was meant to be to complete the cycle.

I pressed against the void and felt the greatest sensation of frozen current suffuse the energy that had become my being, and then, just as it had come, the unwelcome heat of creation override it.

As quickly as it had ended, the process began anew, sparking an ignition throughout the ethereal nature I had temporarily attained. Wherever it rushed, the cold was stolen away and replaced with intense warmth, and I found consciousness came easily as the haze was swept away in the intensity.

Reformatting lungs gasped down precious oxygen, and spewed it right back out in a shuddering cough, as blood tumbled through the barely coherent organs and blocked the passageway up.

Red and yellowy life fluid erupted past mangled lips, and raw hands crashed against the blackened wood beneath them once, harshly, furiously, taking no notice of the nigh-inability to breath.

As my hair returned, and as my mottled jade eyes settled into position, I clenched them shut again in frustration.

_How could it have failed? _Even as the thought pushed through my mind, the answer developed just beneath it, and I knew that I had not acted quickly enough in my second-casting of the Killing Curse.

For a bitter moment I sought out the two wands most linked into my magic, my _nature_, and prepared to snap them for the failure- _never again _would I be able to make this ritual, not after the loss of the Time-turners in my youth, at this point where the ancient Hallows were finally entwining to the utmost and settling the preservation of my existence.

In a week or a year, I would become immortal, bound to the earth unto the days of its erasure in the greater scheme of the cosmos.

All because of three ancient trinkets infused with energy stolen from the cycle of life by three ancient Wizards.

All because the thirst for immortality could not be sated, in a time when bloodlust and bloodspill was encouraged among society.

Something paused my fingers in their mad act of useless vengeance- a quiet flow of noise that did not belong, or lack thereof, where before the echoes of the village had been all-too clear.

When I opened my eyes at last, I knew already that something was different from before, and the smell of old and rotten wood beneath the preservation charms established a decade and a half earlier was likewise missing from the ruins I was hunched over within.

In its stead all I could detect was the slight odor of... _life _is not the proper word, but it is true enough, for the scent of flowers freshly established, of clean water and unburned and tilled earth, of baby powder and slightly stale breath suffused the air.

As I looked outward and took in the view of a barely completed bedroom, the lily petals floating within a fishbowl situated on the single nightstand beside me began to sink and change texture, color, and shape, until they had each and all been reborn as pale goldfish.

On the far wall leftover dueling equipment sat in a haphazard mess, the stains of brown and green still fresh from within a few days time.

And laying on the floor next to a set of animated, self-constructing cribs lay the aforementioned bottle.

Fading sunlight passed through the one window and half-open curtains to my immediately left, and at the last the information present to my senses coagulated into a solid whole;

This was not the ruins of the Potter household, a few years after the dawn of the new millennium.

This was the beginning of the Potter cottage, during the outset of not quite two-and-a-quarter-decades prior.

And that meant that I was not yet born, and not yet unjustly left alone by the destructive thirst of a madman, not yet delivered into the hands of a family with no regard for life that was not _normal_.

My fingers relaxed their stranglehold upon Holly and drew it up, as the other sought out Elder to no avail.

Inside of my chest where the tendrils of immortality had nearly established themselves, I felt a burning itch and whispering desire to hold the Elder wand in my grasp again, and that more than anything else was the easier reaction to focus upon.

I smiled mirthlessly and succumbed to a shrill, unnatural fit of laughter.

_I am Master of Death no more, where the foci belong to other wizards!_

* * *

><p><strong>An old idea from February of this year. It was amusing to kill some time with, but I never really saw it going anywhere further. A brief confrontation with a returning James and Lily Potter exists, as well as an alternative take, which I'll include here as omake's, so keep on reading.<strong>

* * *

><p>In a week or a year, I would become immortal, bound to the earth unto the days of its erasure in the greater scheme of the cosmos.<p>

All because of three ancient trinkets infused with energy stolen from the cycle of life by three ancient Wizards.

All because the thirst for immortality could not be sated, in a time when bloodlust and bloodspill was encouraged among society.

I grasped my Holly wand first in my search for an object to release my anger through, but a noise that should not have been halted my fingers in mid-motion;

The sound of a door swinging open. And the sound of two distinct footsteps, one heavy, one light.

There was no door at the smote Potter residence within Godrics Hallow. It had been reduced to ash and tender when the wards were betrayed and set against my parents.

"I know the Fidelius, Lily! I know how bloody complex it is, and I'm telling you, we don't need Professor Dumbledore here to cast it! If you-" a voice that belonged to memories long ago came to a dead halt as the heavy footsteps entered the upper hallway.

"_Incarcerous!_" My eyes opened up as ropes materialized from thin air, and on the way shifted like liquid as they grew and developed bulk, shades of silver replacing the hues of brown.

The sight of the man who had conjured the rope-to-chain transfiguration held an arm back to a woman with fiery red hair, pale green eyes, and a weariness in both her own features and those of the dark haired man before here.

The rough embrace of solid steel wrapped around my upper chest to bind my arms where they were, intertwining fiercely in seconds, and the forward motion of them lifted me from my kneeling position to throw me backwards against the solid, whole, yellow wall.

It was only after the first drops splashed against the surface that I realized the heat that had faded with my reentry into the world as a solid whole had returned deep within my chest, in a place I had thought would never again feel that warmth after the conclusion of the war.

James and Lily Potter were both alive, and I was no longer alone.

"Go, _go!_" James Potter ordered his wife sharply as his wand twisted and slashed through the air, this time pulling the very door off of its hinges and shifting it into much of the same as before as he held his ground, unsure of who I was or how I had entered the house.

Perhaps he had even seen my regeneration act, the ending cues of my rebirth into a living form, and it disturbed him on a primal level. I did not yet know and nor would I have cared his reasoning for the act, consumed as I was by the simple sight of my parents alive and well again.

I could feel the tethers binding my life together solidify into finality, and a whispering connection between wand, cloak, and stone came into place.

* * *

><p><strong>Having Harry encounter his parents and, perhaps, even be captured and questioned, was another dead-end. I tried one last attempt to work out something with the concept, discarding the suicidal Master of Death aspect to his personality and instilling a more hard-spun version, one willing to harm to inflict a lesson.<strong>

* * *

><p>In another hours time, after all, the Potter household would be smote and ruined.<p>

Magic had, in the majority, long since lost the power to impress me given these ten years within the wizarding world, though here and there in recent times the extraordinary feat had given me pause to reconsider.

Given the skill and features rendered up and brought low by the best, the greatest of the modern era, over my diminutive ten years among them.

And make no mistake, I have truly observed every facet in that time.

The revelation of an entire community was no such feat.

Less than ten minutes ticked away as I passed by those who belonged to this village, stepping around the children and their bemused elder sibling, or aunt, ignoring the cursory glances and occasional double-take.

Before me lay a simple cottage. It was nestled neatly between one lot and another, and the signpost that marked the deaths of those within was not yet present toward the edge of the small lawn.

The smile on my face vanished altogether as I took in the empty yard; there was no quiet, electric tingle to the air that would signify wards, no paltry barriers of any kind in place to deflect harm and ill away.

"Than let this be the first lesson," I said quietly.

The front door melted off of its hinges into a pool of cold water as I waved Elder and Holly in tandem, with concentration focused between them to allow the consciousness' within each to understand my intentions.

The splash of it echoed with the noise of wood, however, demonstrating just how far my skill had diminished with twain-casting at this point.

My eyes took in the sight of James Potter hastily scrambling forward and into the hallway with a small foot dangling beneath one arm, and the bristles of a miniature broom emerging just beneath it, his voice shouting out something that did not register.

My breath had stopped for just a moment as I looked upon my father in living flesh, and not merely memory, or wisps of dim smoke and ethereal intangibility.

Then I strode up the rest of the sidewalk, over my pool of liquid wood, and across the threshold, already dismantling the walls separating the three of us from one another with a series of dual-vanishing charms.

Claws across wood announced the response as James' transfiguration charged, low and slightly misshapen from his haste, but clearly lethal and fiercely determined to defend its maker's life.

I vanished the paws and allowed it to thrash violently to a halt a yard away, snapping up a pale blue Protego in the process as his ropes-turned-chains transfiguration rushed over the now available air space between he and I.

Above and slightly ahead Lily joined the desperate venture, adding a silver doe Patronus as I dragged the lynx off of the floor to intercept the physical objects.

I had to admire the skill he possessed- it was one half of the equation in their survival to defy Voldemort thrice before this night.

Then my mother fell through a hole in the floor to land next to my father, and their power pooled together as they fought what they assumed to be their death come forward at last.

I reduced the rest of the house about us to water in response, inducing a slight singe to the underside of my non-primary hand at the force and energy required.

Whatever spells, curses, or charms they may have been about to deliver were forcefully aborted as they sought to defend my one-year-old self from the deluge.

My Protego kept my own body safe, and I erected the antidisapparation jinx in the two seconds that neither they nor I could see one another. Then it was over, and nothing but open space surrounded the four of us.

* * *

><p><strong>Unfortunately this is as far as it would go. Maybe some day I'll try this out again, but until that point, this concept is toast.<strong>

**In other news, Fallen King's next chapter is trudging its feet, but I'm around 2k words into Sirius Interruptions. I need to re-read Proven Guilty to make sure I have the setting and events steady, but we are definitely meeting Molly next.  
><strong>


	13. 13: Of Reapers and Hallows

_Final Battle, October 1999._

"This is the way it was always going to end, wasn't it, Voldemort?" Harry asked quietly.

The ruins of Godrics Hollow matched the destruction of the Potter Cottage, and where old magic still burned, anarchy resulted as it clashed against the black magic Voldemort had unleashed.

The elder and most potent wizard alive responded with a mocking hiss of satisfaction, appreciating the meaning in his prophecised nemesis' choice of words.

A stab of _Legilimency _rocked Harry's head back, but only for a moment, relying on the powerful psychic scar imprinted where the physical one had at last been purged in order to lower his guard.

Flame lashed out against his body, raking up and down and razing the black robes of Hogwarts where the whip passed. The glowing edges spread and left charred ash in their wake, but the vulnerable flesh beneath lay untouched by an act of forethought.

Ukranian Ironbelly scales enshrouded his body from just beneath his throat and down his waist, from shoulder to the elbow and thigh to knee, yet an alien object was lodged at the breastplate; a cold, black stone.

Harry finished his silent incantation as Voldemort reacted and altered his tactic, whipping the yew wand at his face and just as swiftly toward the hands so that the burning white crackled and thundered as it was instantaneously shifted from scorching flame into wicked lightning.

The metal of the scales and thousands of tiny links eagerly accepted the current and flashed and smoked, driving a raw scream from the younger Master of Death that was shortly cut off; for a moment his heart stopped beating, and in that moment he was blown off of his feet to crash through the nearest still standing wall and topple down upon the cracked foundation beneath the rubble.

"Foolish child! Did you believe dragonhide could save you from the cunning of Lord Voldemort? You should have taken in the precious flesh of the Basilisk instead!" Voldemort stated.

Beneath the rubble Harry stirred. It was not the death that he had counted on, but it reaffirmed the fact that the shreds of the vile soul infecting his body were indeed purged twice over, and ironically enough in the same manner.

The last connection, that of blood, was all that held the two of them together now- even his wand lay split open several meters away from the devastating spell.

The words he had spoken, and the power he had wrought, the invocation of ancient rites and ancient magic, coalesced into harmony at last, now that he had stalled for enough time.

A ripple in the air signified the first calling- an unerring, gray-green mist gathering up from the charred soil as the pathway was created atop cursed land.

Voldemort began to trek forward after no response answered his message, and he thrust his wand forward again with a chant of "_Accio!_" in order to drag Harry's prone form from beneath the stone, where he wrapped a hand into the black hair and stared into the faint green eyes coldly.

"You will respond to your superior before your death, Harry Potter. You will not deny me this final pleasure before your ending." He stated.

The ripple in the air happened again, as the mist grew more and more condensed, and with the sound of silk being ripped open, a shapeless and unseen being stepped out upon the mist. The eight indention's in the upper surface marked the tread of its toes, and an ninth and far longer and deeper edge proved its piercing sickle true.

In his eyes, the wide, white grin of the Reaper reflected as it measured the two of them for who the bell tolled.

hphphp

_Some months prior_.

Silently upending the bottles of memories into the pensieve, Harry wondered exactly what it was that Snape could possibly have to show him after everything else.

Wasn't it enough that he had killed Dumbledore? Or Professor Lupin, and his godfather Sirius? What more could Snape possibly do to torment him mentally after that, unless it showed that he had been standing there the night that Voldemort killed his mother and father?

He could almost expect to see the vile man looming over his aunt and uncle and threatening them into the way they had treated him throughout his life, but the bitterness wasn't quite so deep, even if their fear of magic would certainly seem to indicate a prior threat of imminent misery.

The swirl of mist building together attracted his attention back to the moment and Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and plunged his face forward into the scene he knew he would not savor in the slightest.

* * *

><p><em>Three men stood around a circle carved into the dirt, a crimson circle filled with crimson runes that had been carefully set mere minutes ago.<em>

_In the background the former inhabitants of Godric's Hollow lay desecrated and robbed of their precious life fluid, down to the very last child and elder._

_The three mens' faces depicted varying degrees of repulse at the acts they had committed that night, in the lower end of December- the last night of Fall becoming the morning of the first day of Winter._

_The oldest of the men raised a shabby, crudely fashioned wand, in true representation of the wands of the current age, and he began the first incantation to fulfill the rite of ascension that they had uncovered._

_In moments the second eldest also brought his own short and stubby wand up and joined in the chant of words, clenching his eyes shut to remove the images still flashing in his eyes._

_The youngest of the three seemed also caught in a paralyzing state of pain, as his breath rushed in and out, and his wide eyes scanned the death surrounding them again and again._

_After several further seconds the older man reached out and shook the youngest violently, eyes narrowed as the needed power was still just out of their reach with merely two working to power it._

_A terrible grimace spread over the youngest mans face as he brought up his long and crooked wand and began to rapidly repeat their message, still held in his brothers grasp and meeting his cold gaze heavily, yet without stammering._

_One minute trickled into three, into five, and into ten, and still they chanted without pause even for a proper breath, so that their tones varied and pitched slightly._

_A faint ripple spread up into the air from the point of their focus, directly over the circle and the runes of blood, and within that point dewdrops of gray and green mist began to bubble up from the soil._

_Relief shone in the elder man's eyes, while the younger two looked less pleased even if this was indeed the sign that they had required._

_The longer they spoke the more the mist gathered, until after many long minutes it had obscured the entire ground for forty-nine feet around them._

_Then, at last, the air screamed- a noise like fine animal skin being peeled back and then suddenly torn in two, and an unseen figure descended to land upon the surface of the mist._

__The eldest brother swallowed dryly as his tongue lapsed into silence, having drawn the creature forth that would grant them their desire, exactly as the rite had described it would.__

_The fact that they were murderers a dozen times over did not seem to weigh in so heavily in the face, in the presence rather, of the supernatural being standing atop the mist unseen._

"Death, O Death, gracious host eternal of the hallowed passage; we call to thee, and bind to thee, this circle moste purified in precious nurturing blood, in acts most vile to sooth your appearance_,_" he stated in a careful voice.__

_The marks in the mist turned toward him, and a pair of dim, black stars burned into existence half a foot above his head as it turned its gaze to stare upon him singularly._

_A heavy weight pressed in upon his body and the oldest brother felt a mind, if mind it could be called, sift through his dark gaze and extract a painful memory from him. The silver fluid spilled out of his tear-ducts and rushed up into an unseen hand, and before their eyes it began to harden and shift and become something else altogether._

_When a minute had passed, his wand suddenly drew out of his grasp and was folded into the mix, and then as the groan of wood under intense pressure and the hearty crack as it shattered followed, the rising thing began to take a final shape and form of marble white and half a dozen intricate rings around the base._

_At last a pure white wand, inflexible, unbending, given life from the core of his previous wand and intelligence taken from his terrible thought, was wrought and hung within the air._

_After one last moment the wand hovered over to his open hand, and the third brother stared at it in awe. Then he clasped that hand atop it, and wind buffeted the mist and runes beneath, and knocked the branches in the trees to the ground, chill and fierce and biting as it was._

_Ensconced within the glory of his desire turned true, the eldest brother retreated from the circle to retire._

_The same weight pressed in upon the middle sibling and, as before, the unwelcoming presence of its being dredged through his mind and extracted that which he would most want owned._

_As the silver memory tumbled in mid air, shrinking and hollowing out before shifting further still, a faint white light withdrew from his chest less than half a knut wide, yet all the more precious than all of the treasures in the world, as it wound into the winding spiral and darkened it so._

_In time a black stone, marked by the emblem of their family crest at its heart, solidified and pressed of its own accord into his shaking hand._

_Weary, and aching from the loss to his soul, the middle brother sank to his knees and spun the stone thrice on the way to the ground, and so became consumed in his own focus for the time._

_At the last, the weight settled in upon the youngest brother- yet here as his mind was invaded and pressed through, no thought was extracted to make and reforge anew._

_Instead as the moments ticked by, he spoke, a whisper no louder than a pitch within his throat_. "Free me from this contract, O Death, O Death, release me from your bitter grip and seek me naught in vengeance most just_,_" he begged.__

_For another moment nothing occurred, until the very memory he had just procured was drawn forward, and hovered in the air, slowly flicking in and out of view._

_The bony feet were the first sight of what it was doing, trailing up to the shin and shallow hips beyond, along a crooked vertebrae and spine to angled shoulders, neck, and ever-grinning skull._

_At the last the Reaper's own cloak lay unseen atop its hands, passed from its own care into the mastership of the young wizard before it, and so was loosely pushed into his shaking grip._

_With the desires granted of the three who had called it, the Reaper opened its jaws wider still and stepped without the circle, free again._

* * *

><p><em><em>Final Battle, October 1999.<br>__

Unseen, the Reaper looked between the two of them to judge whom it was that the unheard bells were tolling for.

The scent of death spread from both of them, yet it was far more ingrained within the taller, paler wizard, and more heavily represented ironically enough by the measures taken to avoid it.

"Speak for me, Harry Potter, and your suffering will be shorter lived. _Crucio!_" gripping all the tighter into his foes hair even as he cast the cruciatus curse, Lord Voldemort felt his face widen as Harry twisted and thrashed against the pain.

A moment later pain rushed into his own shoulder, the arm that held his wand, a feeling that, if Harry had experienced it, would have trumped the agony lancing through his form by an order of magnitude.

As it was, Voldemort shrieked like a banshee, his voice echoing across the houses and old hills for a mile around, as the severed section of his soul that was bound there and holding him to the mortal coil was abruptly accessed and drawn forward across the span of the ethereal world, and welded back into the battered whole.

Harry collapsed to the ground as Voldemort stood as if petrified, anguish burning him alive from the deepest pits of his being all the way to the edges of his flesh.

After long minutes the job was done for that fraction, and then the sickle withdrew and drove into his other arm, and began to repeat the process once again with the next severed section of his soul hidden across the world.

Four more times this action was done, and with each motion, the body of Lord Voldemort twisted and shifted and warped as it altered and reunited back into a form akin to his originally born self.

By the time it was done, the suffering he had endured had become unendurable, and the foulest wizard alive had been driven into the true depths of madness and insanity, the same way that Alice and Frank Longbottom once were before they were slain before Neville's eyes a month ago.

After bringing him back together, the Reaper brought its sickle upward one last time, pausing in midair above the wizards heart where Voldemort had collapsed to the ground, unable to take his life.

Harry picked up the fallen phoenix feather core wand and cast the simple cutting curse with the tip against his foes neck. A single arch as the muscles spasmed, and then the sickle fell and scooped out the mangled, yet nigh on whole, being of the Dark Lord.

It was wholly unsatisfying, relatively undramatic, and yet it was the task that he had been handed down by his ancestry and reenforced by fate, and the blind faith within it, that the prophecy must be fulfilled at all costs and any measure.

Then the Reaper cradled the true remains of Tom Riddle to its face, into the black pitches with their hollow white glow, and stepped back across the mist toward the nearest house- the others of the village must be collected, and guided onward, as well.

* * *

><p><strong>Another idea floating around my head, this time from March. I wanted a take on the Deathly Hallows that still held Death involved in its mythology, but in a way more explainable. Harry ends up summoning a different Reaper to the one that the Peverell Brothers did, with the same unsavory costs taken to fulfill the ritual.<strong>

**Also; Curse of Hamunaptra is slowly progressing toward its next chapter. Here's a teaser snippet.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Fires burst to life all throughout the chamber near the ceiling in a number of brackets, but Harry had eyes only for the figure glaring toward him ominously.<p>

The magic wasn't the same, not by a long shot, but after cradling it, knowing it, as long as he had, the malignant sense cast off by the Inferius' body reminded him quite clearly of the same sense that he had long since discovered Voldemort had given off during his resurrection all those years ago.

And if the two felt so alike to one another, there was a good chance that they were near enough the same.

"Which means someone just got another go at walking the earth again. Great." Harry muttered to himself as the Inferius gripped one of the rising, shambling forms around it by the neck and pressed a surge of energy down into it, chanting.

Instantly the worst of the damage preventing it from being useful faded; mangled legs snapped back together in a series of horrifying cricks and pops, and the hollow eyes filled in with the same black force animating the apparent leader. It did not return to the same wholeness as the initial figure, but it recovered more than enough to function as if it had.

Having seen enough muggle films to know where this was going, Harry spared the area one last grim look to see if he could find the book laying up against a wall or beneath one of the shambling creatures to little avail.

Then he turned around with a harsh sigh and nearly tripped over Draco's useless hide.

"Bugger! I swear to you, Malfoy, if you betray me after this I'll gut you like a cod and feed you alive to whatever is the nearest deadly animal!" He growled out; he couldn't leave the once-rival behind, least _more_ of the same Inferius arise from feasting on his flesh and double the problem.

Slashing his wand through the air, Draco's body shot up four feet and, at the next motion, became featherlight. With that task done and the sounds of further rising soldiers down below, he took off down the hallway and trusted the locomotive spell to keep the blond ponce within a reasonable distance and similar rate of motion.

A flash of memory almost blinded him and sent him stumbling for the ground- the sight of the Triwizard Cup landing ten feet away from him.

* * *

><p><strong>It isn't much, and I've got about eleven hundred words in total, but it is <em>something<em> at least. I'm sorry that it's taken so much time to give you guys even that scrap.**


	14. 14: Promethean Fire

_Boom. Boom. Boom. Clink._

A scalpel slid across the metallic table and came to a rest on the far side of it across the room, quivering on the edge of slipping to the floor below.

_Boom.__ Clink_. _Boom. Boom._

As the whole room rattled once more, the scalpel surrendered to gravity's hold and sank point-down into the dark stone, its owner releasing a slow sigh from where he had thrown it.

"How much longer will this last?" He hypothesized to himself - for the moment.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Grinding his back teeth together, Harry Potter reached down to his belt and drew his wand from the thin and compact holster hanging there beneath his lab-coat.

He had already done his level-best to silence the outside world from his little corner of property, but time and time again it - _society_ - had found a way to knock once more upon his door.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

And this time, it sounded like they had brought a pack of trolls with them.

He scowled at the shudder wracking his home and turned his eyes upon the large, muddy _thing_ slowly dripping upon the floor before him.

A small jab of the holly and phoenix feather construct, a controlled burst of fire across the haphazard runes strewn across the surface, and he felt a measured sense of satisfaction pierce the irritation on his mind.

They glowed with the dull red of newborn embers.

_Boom. Boom. Fweeee. Boom._

Ignoring the sudden, shrill whistle from the silver teapot over the fireplace, the first of many ward-indicators to signify imminent failure, Harry held his wand above the head of his project, siphoning out a steady trail of flame.

With all the patience in the world he slowly spun his wand around it in an ever-descending arc. The flames licked at the mud and occasional hint of wood that supported its frame, and the mildly wet substance began to grow warm within the channel of air caught up in the wake.

_Boom. Fweeee. Boom. Fweee-fweeee._

As the second-such whistle picked up alongside the first, Harry resisted the urge to take his eyes away from his work to banish them across the room as he had his scalpel before. It would detract precious time and more-so concentration, but the noise screaming in his ears was little better.

His wrist rose and dipped as he lengthened the fire-whip out further still, so that it engulfed his hardening construct from the tip of its blob-like head to the bulky elbows hanging at the waist.

The glow of the runes lightened to pale orange as they siphoned off the heat and energy and ferried them into a tight bundle in the middle of the gut, gradually building up its core even as the outer shell dry-roasted.

_Boom. Fweee-fweeee_. _Boom. Fweee-fweeee-fweeee._

Gritting his teeth against the symphony of hades cutting straight into his brain through his ear-canals, Harry spun his wand faster and faster still, pushing the energy forward in preparation for the final rush at the end.

The runes glittered like morning stars as the core approached its statute of saturation, and sweat began to drip down his arm from the physical exertion alone.

_Boom-fweee-fweeee-fweee. Boom-fweee-fweeee-fweee. Boom-fweee-ksh._

Blessed silence fell upon his aching mind as the wards were felled at last.

That meant that he had little enough time left, true, but it was _done_- the final note had failed to overshadow the rustle of burning _life_ that had flooded throughout the empty pathways and surged into twin emerald motes within the hollow, slanted holes set upon its brow.

It was no terracotta soldier, but the living figure handcrafted before him now brought his lips together into a wide grin irregardless at the sort of ugly-beauty it endowed.

Black flesh unblemished by no more than a handful of cracks solely in the wooden supports at each shoulder, misshapen and no taller than himself, it held itself in a different sort of stillness now than it had even just moments ago.

The double-doors a full fifteen meters at his back began to rattle in their hinges.

_Time to verify_, he thought giddily, still grinning.

Harry flicked his wand to the right and saw the golem's right arm shift in response. He threaded it upward and around and savored the sort of ethereal-understanding and connection that spread through the two of them, maker and made.

He continued to move his wand erratically, eyes glued to the construct of broken wood and stone as it moved in time.

With a quiet fizzle, the doors began to melt and shrivel where they stood.

He stepped to one side of his creation so that it would be in full, unchallenged view when they broke in, he could not contain his satisfaction and imminent feeling of pride.

Heavy footsteps approached the open doorway and slowed immediately at the sight that greeted them.

A smile that was all teeth spread across Harry's face as his gaze turned to the numerous Death Eaters that were warily approaching him; a target rich environment indeed.

* * *

><p><strong>Another challenge response from DLP. At just shy of 850 words, this was almost cathartic to write, and it was easily the most satisfying 850 words I've cranked out for the better part of a year.<strong>


	15. 15: Snape Torture

The first thing he noticed, after the coldness of the floor, was that the circular room he was in shared many, many similarities to the Headmaster's office.

It had the same numerable, if empty, portraits lining the walls, the same worn down desk and shelving, and even the perch upon which the phoenix, Fawkes, had once rested.

This did not do many things to please the man, for he had endured quite a lot of Albus' sentiments to last him a lifetime- indeed, he was supposed to be _free_ of them, given his last memories were of being struck down at the fangs of the Dark Lord's serpent, Nagini.

Unfortunately, he had either been sufficiently petrified and brought to life again at last, or else this was the afterlife and thus some form of hell.

"Get up, Snape," a cold voice interjected before he could contemplate the matter any further.

_No. No, no, no..._ his thoughts flickered to dread as he craned his head around further, and there he saw the very man he had been least looking forward to seeing ever again.

_Harry Potter_.

Against his desire, Snape's hands pressed into the floor and his body bent at the waist, and another moment later saw him rising onto his knees.

"Wait. Stay right there, just like that," Potter's voice spoke up abruptly.

He was dismayed to find that he had little to no control over his form any longer, and his anger boiled up to the surface.

_How dare you..._ he tried to drag his head up from looking down at the desk, and to pull his legs up closer to his chest so that he could rise from a partially kneeling position, all to no avail.

"You may be wondering why you aren't living out your everlasting next-great-adventure right about now, Snape. Well, allow me to explain." Potter stated coolly.

A few seconds passed before the squeak of the old armchair being leaned into occurred, and then the wretched brat had set his feet onto the desk directly before his vision, wriggling the toes for extra emphasis.

"_Ah, better_," Potter said in a lighter tone.

"As I was saying; you should be frolicking among great fields of potion fumes right about now, singing merrily about your impending, delusional marriage to Lily Evans, and dancing atop James Potter's grave."

For a moment he felt his fingers twitch, and while grinding his teeth together did little to help, at least it gave him an outlet for his rising anger until he found a way to get out of this body-binding curse.

"Strange how Heaven works like that. Anyway," Potter slid the chair forward and propped one foot on his shoulder and the other on top of his head, re-enforcing the terrible stench emanating from them.

"I figured I'd drop by and see how you were coping in the afterlife, and let me tell you, my disgust just about tripled at the rooms I found inside your head up there. _Honestly_, do you realize how far you've gone from a twisted lust for my mother into utter obsession? _They_ might forgive and forget, but considering your hand in my assisted-suicide, I'm afraid it'll be a cold day below before I accept your incentives on the matter as being wholly toward the side of good."

_You ignorant fool!_ He snarled silently. _You have no idea what I've sacrificed, in her name, for you!_

"Oh, shut up. I can read your mind as easily as your face these days. My point is that you haven't proven your worth to rest in my not so humble opinion, and I know for a fact that I'm not about to let you spend your time defiling my mother even in thought."

A creeping sensation began to gather at the back of his mind the further this situation played out.

As if compelled, his mouth finally opened up and his words tumbled out.

"What in the seven levels of hell are you talking about, Potter?"

Green eyes that bordered on a shade of black looked down on him as the foot resting over his shoulder moved beneath his chin and forced his head up, and a moment after meeting one another's respective gaze, the illusion over Potter's form began to peel away.

He watched transfixed as the skin bubbled and dripped off, and the muscles and blood began to slough free as well, until all that remained were the high points of the skeletal structure.

Those same eyes deepened from any shade of Lily's into ethereal pools of flickering black, and when the jaws twitched and smiled dementedly at him, it occurred that he was not dealing with the same ignorant child that he had known for seven years.

Whatever creature had taken up Potter's form was something he dearly wished to break gazes with and focus once more upon his own legs, and as if suddenly released from the binds holding him down he tumbled back onto his hands and ass.

The thing in Potter's guise told him without so much as a change in inflection, "_Finally gotten a nice good luck, eh? This is who I am to you, and to the rest of the pitiful spirits still under circumstantial judgment, and this is why I can drag your hide back into the mortal realm. If I felt like being vengeful, like my father, I could chain you up to Azkaban for a few centuries._"

Wearily he crawled back up against the wall, looking away and focusing on the empty phoenix perch.

Fear was brewing in his belly, sending it rising toward the surface and racing through his veins, until he could hardly focus on anything else.

"_Snape, you made so many mistakes in this life that I could fill a telephone book full with them. And to be frank, I honestly don't care about what you did to me, given I survived to become... _this_. No,_" Potter paused and slid off of the desk, rose up from the chair, and strode over toward him with a rough clack of bone on tile.

"_What I care about is that you have Lily Potter, and before and beneath that Lily Evans, inscribed into your mind. You can go back alone, tied directly into your life with her absence being a constant void you will never fill. Let your own personal Heaven be spent in days of constant potion brewing and regret, or whatever else it is you might have once felt joy toward._"

Potter leaned a hand down and the fear grew to overwhelming within him.

It surged to the surface and he was suddenly paralyzed again, and the deathly chill flowing off of Potter's form was felt at last as whatever power he had kept contained was allowed to flow freely.

_No!_ His desperate, unheard cry echoed within his own skull as the pointed fingertips pressed down against his hairline, and suddenly a thousand memories flooded through him, rushing and straining toward the surface as he remembered his one, true, love lost.

And it was all swept up and taken from him over the course of a minute. A lifetimes' events focused solely around... _someone_, or some_thing_.

A painful blank pressed in as he tried to remember again what he had just felt, but cool numbness began to fill it instead.

"_I'll be seeing you, Severus. Or rather, I won't._" The eldritch horror before him waved that same hand vaguely upward, and darkness consumed his vision instantly, lasting a small eternity before his consciousness fled.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: An old idea I had from 2011 on a different sort of Master of Death!Harry. I imagined further scenes focusing on the other Death Eaters, be they caught at the gates of judgment or dragged up from below, and finally concluding on Riddle's encounter. The epilogue I had in mind also would have shown Harry looking in on friends and family that were resting at peace, but ultimately beyond his reach to contact.

Unfortunately I never really went anywhere else with this and forgot about it afterwards. So, thanks for reading.


	16. 16: Meeting a young Tom Riddle

Footsteps carried down the hall, only slightly delayed by the thump of the large front door settling back into place as another stranger entered the orphanage.

Voices soon followed.

The weary, frustrated tones of their caretaker, Mrs. Cole. And the stranger's, too soft to pick up on even from the doorways nearest.

Tom did not bother standing at the doorway of his small, bland room any more, and nor did he display surprise, doubt, or dismay when the elder men and women barely spared him a glance before marching onward to look in on the rest of the children, as they always did anymore.

More footsteps, the sharp rattle of Mrs. Cole's heels, and then the heavier and almost muffled-sounding boots of the current stranger.

The child did not look up from his reclined position on the pillow and hard bed, not even when the two adults stopped at his door.

When they did not go away, however, and no voice spoke up to display an argument, he _did_ feel a thread of doubt work its way back into him, and he glanced over uncertainly with just his eyes.

The stranger stood there looking back at him. "Tom Riddle," he stated quietly, almost-testing or perhaps even teasing in his tone of voice.

Tom blinked and leaned up. "Sir?" He asked cautiously.

The stranger continued to meet his gaze, worn green to concerned mahogany, and turned his head toward the left shoulder to speak to Mrs. Cole.

"Gather up the necessary paperwork. I believe he is exactly who I was searching for." The stranger stated.

Mrs. Cole displayed her own relief almost immediately, a shallow sigh that turned back toward stiffness after a moment.

"Are you sure? We do not allow for refunds, see, after a certain age is reached- and Tom is nearly eight, after all." She informed him.

Something in the strangers eyes shifted. "I am quite certain. Tom will _never_ have to return to _this place_, pardon the strength of my tone."

Flickers of wary hope appeared in the child's eyes, but he nevertheless picked up an odd sense from the adult, a sort of understanding that made little sense.

Mrs. Cole nodded behind his back and concealed her next sigh of relief. "Just a minute then, sir. And then several more to complete the process." She told him.

The stranger didn't answer, and so she marched back up to her desk, leaving the two of them alone.

"May I come in, Tom?" the other asked. He nodded quickly.

"Thank you," the stranger said, stepping inside and sitting down upon the cold floor as if it were the most natural resting place in the world.

The act brought their eyes to a nearer level, and he looked away after a moment, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"My name is Harry," the stranger introduced himself. "I have come a long way to reach this part of London, a very long way, in order to rectify the wrong which placed you here eight years ago."

A spike of alarm ran through Tom's mind at that, and he sat up and drew his legs in toward his chest quickly. Doubt returned, only now it was a sharper kind, a dubious kind that put him on guard- _no one_ knew who he was, or his real family, or else they would have pulled him out of the orphanage long before.

"I see that my introduction has only concerned you. Forgive me, I only wanted to let you know that things are going to be different now, if not better in some regard," Harry stated.

Mrs. Cole returned a few seconds later, preceded by her footsteps, and she paused at the sight of them.

"Is everything alright, sir? Tom?" she asked mildly.

Harry did not answer, slightly inclining his head to show that the answer was on Tom.

He had never had anyone show any sign of wanting to pick him up, and that uncertainty and longing clashed with him for another moment, but he felt nothing of imminent danger.

The only thought that paced beside it was if his father was still alive out there in the world, and if they would be going to see him and if he would be welcomed, or rejected, at that point.

But the stranger's words when speaking to Mrs. Cole...

* * *

><p>"Where are we going?" Tom asked ten minutes later, still unsure of the adult as they clasped hands to walk down the sidewalk.<p>

"We're going to make a trip first and foremost, Tom. There is the matter of your blood-father, many miles away from here, of whom you have probably been quite concerned over these many years."

It was true that Tom had wondered who his father was, but it had been so long now that he was certain whoever it was had died, either before or following the death of his mother at the orphanage doors eight years before.

However... "Is he dead?" He asked.

Harry almost stumbled at the unexpected question, in turn nearly pulling Tom off of his own feet in the process.

"Ah, sorry! And no, your blood-father is still very much alive. But he does not know who you are, or where you've been, and things may be too much for him to accept the truth after so long."

Something about the words felt _off_ to the child, and he looked up to the older man's face, studying the look there with a frown.

Harry did not look away. "His name is the same as yours, Tom, which is why I was able to track you down so easily, once I found him."

The same strangeness to the words was once more putting him on guard. "Why are you telling me this?" He questioned, distrust beginning to color his tone.

Harry finally looked away before answering.

"So that you have some idea of what you've missed for several years, Tom. And so that, should this meeting not proceed entirely in your favor, you will know that there is an alternative to living at the Riddle Manor." The adult said openly.

Tom continued to frown as he too looked away, staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk.

"You're lying to me somewhere." He stated quietly, almost certain of it.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Tom to do the same or risk getting jerked again by the arm, and then the older man was kneeling down before him.

"Tom, everything that I have said to you contains both a grain of straightforward honesty and spirals of lesser truth wrapped up into it here and there, but not one word has been a flat-out lie intended to harm or painfully deceive you." Harry stated with a quiet intensity.

Tom's frown became a scowl, but Harry gripped him by the chin lightly and forced their eyes to meet again. "You are far, far too young to be burdened with unending, open honesty. Your parents are as much at fault for that as anything else. I can not tell you everything that you deserve to know until you are of an age to comprehend the full measure, meaning, and intention behind such things."

There was further sincerity in his voice, and in his eyes, but the message was clear; Tom would not be told what he should, and anything he asked would be altered or watered down in some way to avoid the truth.

A series of white lies.

For a moment anger blossomed in his heart, and he wrenched his head out of the others hand before turning on his heel and rushing down the sidewalk at full pace.

"Tom!" Harry shouted at his back, then started to jog quickly after him.

However, Tom was a small child, able to slip between the knees of the crowd, where as Harry was a tall adult and forced to slow down or risk causing a scandal, to say the least.

* * *

><p><strong>An old take on that 'Harry goes back in time to adopt Tom Riddle before he becomes Voldemort' cliche. I never took it any further than this, and I'm finding a good few bits and pieces as I go back through my two-year archives. Roughly a thousand or so words.<br>**


	17. 17: Beginnings of Thief Harry

"I still do not believe this is the right choice, Albus," a quiet if stern female voice said to her companion.

Albus exhaled wearily. "Nor do I desire to leave him here, Minerva, but to whom could we trust him within our world? Even now Tom's followers rush toward the Ministry to beg clemency, and I have it on good faith besides that no two Death Eaters have ever seen one anothers face. The amount of Dark sympathizers are too great to risk young Harry's life on an unnecessary gambit," he told her sadly.

A soft tut of disapproval escaped her lips, but she nodded once in concession, and turned her gaze upon the small basket and its precious cargo. "Good luck to you, little Harry Potter," she said sincerely.

She stepped back and turned to depart down the sidewalk, Albus following alongside. When they reached the end of the street, a pair of soft pops announced their vanishing into thin air.

* * *

><p>Five years later, and a scrawny boy with tangled, messy black hair scampered along the busy marketplace and away from old Mrs. Figg, eager to see the sights and smell the delicious smells without having to worry about being scalded for it.<p>

As Harry dashed around, dodging carefully in and out of walkways filled up with legs one moment and then open the next, he found his path abruptly obscured.

The surprise barely appeared on his face as he stumbled to a halt a moment later, half tripping over his own feet as his hands hit the smoothly paved dirt beneath, and back-pedaled to avoid being stepped on, but the man with the wide and dark colored robes only smiled down at him when he tried to stammer out an apology, as his Uncle had taught him to.

A small bronze coin with a decidedly _odd_ marking down the center was dropped down before him and the man continued on his way, leaving Harry staring at the coin in surprise and, more so, wonder.

_Why did he... reward me?_ Harry thought, glancing at the crowd to try and get another glimpse, but the man had already vanished by then into a sea of dark colored cloaks, and as he sat on his haunches in the middle of the bustling street, he realized that no one was stepping on or near him, but rather were dodging around as if he were simply a stone to be evaded at the last moment.

Picking up the odd coin he studied it a moment, then shoved it into a pocket, smiling again. He could worry it out later - it was definitely not a typical piece of change, and if the emblem made it useless if not flatly odd, then secretly, deep down inside, he felt quite thrilled to own it.

His Aunt and Uncle ranted about oddness often enough, and he knew he could not carry it into the house, but if he asked Mrs. Figg to hold onto it for him, she probably would.

And in fact, she would probably be able to tell him about it. He did not know much about money beyond that it cost a lot to house him and feed him and cloth him, and that he owed his Aunt and Uncle a great deal of it when he was old enough to pay them back, but he knew enough to recognize the normal markings on the small-change Dudley taunted him with occasionally.

As he stood up to get going again, still engrossed in his thoughts about the coin, he turned to go down another path and tripped over a large pile of refuge and dirty clothing sitting next to a stall, sending him sprawling again - only this time on his chest and stomach before he could catch himself.

"Ow!" he shouted, at the same time a rumbled growl said, "Oi!"

The pile of junk he had tripped over stirred and shook, and a sudden dirty-colored hand rushed out to flip up the brim of several old and ratty cloths, revealing a single great and bloodshot half-lidded eye.

For a very long moment Harry thought he had disturbed some kind of terrible beast and scrambled to get onto his back and away from it, but the eye dilated in the mild noon sun peeking down through the awning overhead and then widened almost comically.

He had barely hopped up to his feet before that same hand whipped out and snatched him around the left wrist, and yanked him forward again, knocking his hair around - and revealing his old scar in full.

"You're Harry bleedin' Potter!" the voice exclaimed, and another hand suddenly materialized from beneath a pile of rippling cloths, tugging at a scarf obscuring the mouth.

Harry tried to pull free, and after a moment the hand holding on to him released, but just as quickly the pile of shambles stood up and blocked his escape path.

"Calm down a'ready, I ain't here ta eat you!" the voice stated, then swore quickly and not precisely quietly at something down the alleyway ahead. Harry barely trusted his nerve to take his eyes away from the possible-man, but a jet of red light came rushing forward and took away the decision altogether when it slammed into his form weightlessly.

He crumbled to the ground and the man did so as well, slinging out one hand once more even as his clothing shifted in almost the opposite direction.

Harry felt an intense pain suffuse his being, and the morning sunlight shining down into the alley dimmed to blackness just before he fell unconscious.

* * *

><p>When Harry opened his eyes again, he found himself in a room he did not recognize. It was dark, with the windows heavily boarded up and curtained besides. The only light available came from before a small fireplace that was also, curiously, boarded up and slightly falling apart. A bank of coals glowed moderately nearby, allowing enough light to dimly point out things in the edges of the room, and notice those closer rather better.<p>

After a moment the smells inherent in the room caught his attention- a curdling smell reminiscent of bad socks and rotting cheese, first and foremost, and coming from the bank of coals. He was surprised to find no smoke coming from them, and no smell of it, either, but in its place the rest happily took up the slack.

Dampness akin to the mold beneath the shower curtains and around the toilets, and especially still in some of the boards he had to sleep beneath, radiated from the walls and the floor, and left over rags of all kinds decorated the floor and the dust-laden sheet haphazardly slapped up over an old couch.

Fear, then, returned as he finished his examination of the surroundings. Fear of where he was, and who or _what_ had brought him here, of the ragged-man and his sudden, surly, shouting.

And then, out of nowhere, the man appeared again!

Harry barely choked back his scream as the pile of refuge-scented clothing materialized before the bank of coals, swearing once more, and dropping loose change across the floor.

"_Harry bleedin' Potter, of all tha rugrats in this abysmal _place,_ no wonder tha bleedin' Auror's started snipin' at me bleedin' head,_" the man growled, then turned around as if just remembering that he had left the boy in the same room.

Harry jumped as that large eye fell upon him. "Er, uh, you hear all that, lad?" He asked in a less offensive tone.

Harry reluctantly nodded.

"_Bloody hell._" Shaking his head, or at least that was what Harry hoped he was doing, the man reached up and tugged his top three layers of hats and scarves aside, revealing dirty and matted ginger hair.

Then, to Harry's complete surprise, the man bowed his head with a rough sweep of one arm.

* * *

><p><strong>Another old piece, this time a go at Thief!Harry, as raised by Mundungus Fletcher. Never proceeded past this, alas.<strong>


	18. 18: Alternative Last Dragonrider

It only took him a few minutes travel to work his way toward the dirt path, mostly by following the hoof prints engraved so heavily into the grass, and by that point the hitherto-unknown companions of the felled creatures made their return on wholly-alive horses.

One of them bore an arrow nocked to a rather impressive looking bow, while the other still had a sword in hand as they galloped toward him.

The man blinked once as the arrow was loosed amid a flutter of wind and then crashed against his left shoulder, which just so happened to be the same side and arm in which he held the ruby egg clasped.

The kick of it threw him back half a foot and left the egg tumbling through the air toward his assailants, as the one with the sword drew it back and threw it spinning toward his heart.

They moved with a speed that was almost supernatural, for dealing with those that truly were as such.

He moved with a speed of _thought_, namely the acceptance that the arrow could move swifter than his limbs, and then the speed of _magic_, by which he gathered up his control of it and uttered a silent, "_Accio._"

As the horses carried forward and the sword span end over end, the egg stilled on its forward journey toward their arms and suddenly darted back to intercept the weapon, drawing their looks of heavy relief toward dawning horror.

The hilt of the weapon crashed against the heavy shell with a physical as much as it was psychic noise, a dreadful kind of wail that drove them all to their knees in its anguish.

The weapon carved a jagged line across the surface of the shell as it was splintered into a dozen shards, obliterating its forward momentum as it threw the egg back into his chest.

He managed to raise an arm this time ahead of the motion and thus was ready to catch it and clutch it to his ribs tightly, binding it as such with further magic even as a viscous fluid wept from the hole in the surface.

The two across from him, where their horses had sunk to the knees hastily and stopped several feet away, spewed a torrent of hideous sounding words as the horror on their faces increased into despair, and the psychic wail began to rise up and down in its intensity.

Then he asserted his mind against its own with a projection that managed to cross over the same. _Shut the fuck up!_ _I'll heal your wounds in a bloody minute!_ He screeched back just as sharply, and the others winced in pain.

He brought his other hand up as the shell cracked further and caved in, and by complete mistake brushed his bare hand, having stripped off and abandoned his gloves and their terrible stench, up against the creature's bloody snout.

The projection of its quiet keening ceased entirely for one long second.

Then it all exploded into furious thought and action and gestures around him, which he took to mean such words that he could actually understand this time as, "Unmitigated disaster," "The loss of all we've worked toward," and, "What now?"

The tendril of the creatures thoughts wormed into his mind and he was suddenly aware that he was holding and bonded with a Dragon. As soon as the connection was made, a flash of silver burned into his hand that had touched the little lizard.

_Dragon?_ He repeated the word that had just pushed through his admittingly-weak Occlumency shielding, along with about a dozen other words and sensations and feelings in what was one of the worst jobs at Leglimency that he had ever experienced.

"Eh, eh, eh!" He yelled aloud this time and snapped his fingers to get the other quasi-men's attention, but they continued to rail back and forth in a conversion of fierce looks, wild back and forth arm waving, and in general a display of madness.

The Dragon keened in pain from where its shell had carved a notch in the snout, the only one of the three to be paying him any attention at all.

_Right,_ he thought flatly, shuffling the imminent questions away from his conscious mind, and drew out his wand. He pressed the tip into the eggshell and right up against the wound and silently healed it within a few seconds.

The motion drew their attention to him at last, and one shouted something in further dismay before brandishing their bow at him. Harry looked up from the now-softly keening noises the Dragon was making and directed his wand at the one with the bow.

"You have five seconds to shut up so I can get a clear meaning from my new source of intimidation or I will burn you where you stand," he warned, eyebrows coming together fiercely.

The same tendril of its thoughts protested that course of action, once it caught the stray thought and intention and pulled up similar memories. _And you, stop that,_ he ordered with a short glance back at the red lizard, _it itches like a bitch and I don't need a distraction besides,_ he told it.

The one that had thrown the sword at him snapped out something short and swift to his companion before stepping forward and pulling the other back, gesturing instead at their horses and their loose neighing, which Harry took to mean they intended to get the creatures away from him.

Harry let them do so and only once they were a good distance back did he finally settle down and start cutting the shell away. A two foot long, gleaming red skinned lizard with tiny transparent wings slid into his arm as he did so, scrambling with minute talons for purchase on his black cloths.

"Alright, where in the universe am I; why are you worming around my upper consciousness like a knockoff Occlumency lesson with Snape; why did you burn a shitty silver tattoo into my wand hand; and who were those four idiots, two of which I nuked into a nice black char some distance back?" He asked the Dragon in a matter of most-important to least.

The tendril of its thoughts seemed to blink, as if surprised. Then it tried wrapping some of the images from its own head around the questions posed, but all he received out of it was a jumbled heap without a proper definition.

"Eh, hey! Enough, shut it, I can't understand even one of those thoughts!" He responded after a minute of trying to put reason to rhyme and falling short.

The others continued to watch him from a good distance, and he spared the Dragon a black look when it nipped his ear hungrily. He dug his wand hand into a hidden pocket and drew out a small vial, which he popped the cap off of and pressed up against its lips.

The Dragon sniffed and recoiled slightly at the pungent odor wafting toward it, but he pushed the neck of the vial forward without relenting and tipped a few drops into its mouth.

The tendril in his mind stiffened as dense warmth spread throughout the body, and it slackened and collapsed against his upper arm as the potion worked through its tiny veins quickly. A few tufts of steam wafted out of the ears and nostrils and a sense of content fullness settled over its hunger.

* * *

><p><strong>Alternative take on <em>Last Dragonrider<em>. Harry's a bit more crude for one, but I honestly just did not like the way this one was turning out and eventually scrapped it in favor rewriting from his landing onward. Below is a bonus scene I'm quite glad I cut from the final product posted.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>His first encounter with the so-called Ancient Language was a lesson of mutually-assured destruction. Some half-assed bastard tried to attack him and, more namely to the point, his walking siege-engine when they entered the nearest village.<p>

The old man's words were strange even among the various languages he had picked up on over the decades, and the sudden realization that it was not just frustration but an actual sort of pseudo-spell caught him completely by surprise when he was bound into position.

Everest was likewise bound where he stood, wings half stretched toward the sky in preparation to soar forward at maximum velocity and lethality, as the grizzled old man strode forward with a staff bared.

Having been bound against his will once-too-often on his last journey or so, Harry knew ways around such magic.

None of them applied, to his chagrin, and gruff words scoffed at his effort as the old man said something beneath his breath in proper English- of sorts.

Unable to grasp his wand, and unable to move physically, Harry did what he often times did- he cast his soul out ala Astral Projection and promptly found himself under the same exact circumstance, somehow.

The old man's face caved at the strain of holding down three of them, and he fingered a ring over one hand before the strain flickered away, so that he was able to continue walking around and surveying them closely.

"Give up, you half blood bastard," the old man swore harshly. "You'll never best my hold over you, not before I've had the time to murder your dragon," he growled and drew out a gleaming sword from within the folds of his robes.

Emotion spilled through Harry as he released the projection and slammed home, and then disapparated. He reappeared leaning up against Everest and repeated the gesture, dragging them back toward the usual camp up in the mountains.

The old man was left standing there and staring dumbly at the empty span of air where they had just preoccupied, and it would be some hours later when the effect binding them in place at last faded, as the bastard gave up on finding them for the night.

Harry swore to gut him the next time the met.

* * *

><p><strong>Terrible. Definitely rewriting Harry and Brom's first meeting to reflect the line 'their encounter with that old mage down in the town and the hard lesson learned there that day' in the first chapter.<strong>


	19. 19: Alternative Of Arda

Despite the closeness between my arrival and their own departure, it took a good time to track down the Company.

I was disappointed to discover one of the boats had already set sail, and in the distance a far way upon the Anduin, I could just make out Frodo, and Sam besides, paddling their way toward Mordor in one row stroke at a time.

If that was the case then, having not yet heard Boromir's desperate cry and call to arms, I knew I might yet be able to do something to prevent further tragedy from occurring.

My first step proved how foolish I was to offer fate such an easily exploited thought, for no sooner had I thought it than the horn of Gondor began to echo among the hills.

I had no time to try and pinpoint his precise location, and set off at once in the direction the noise was coming from. Despite my stride I was hardly out of breath, even with all the time I had spent without a body to my name, and indeed I seemed to have no weariness or fatigue approaching even once I set off up among the twisting path.

I came upon the scene as the first arrow struck Boromir in the gut, some minutes later. He sank to his knees for but a moment, before some unseen energy returned to his limbs and he spun back to his toes, and hewed off another Orc's fell arm.

The next set of arrows were blown off course and deflected harmlessly off of nearby trees as I made my presence known, and I hastened toward his side with my staff extended.

"Stand down, man, and rest your wound 'fore you hasten the reapers call," I instructed him quickly as my shield stopped any further arrows from approaching nearer than half an foot around us.

His eyebrows met together beneath the gasp of pain when he looked at me, twisting the shaft deeper still without meaning to, and I raised one hand and placed it to his shoulder.

"Help will come," I added, scowling around at the Uruk-hai, who as I predicted earlier on did not seem unsettled at my might. I thrust out one hand and uttered, "_Forzare!_" when a pair of them leapt toward the man.

They crashed back into their fellows with shattered ribcages and many another broken bone besides, as metal caved inwards and spinal cords were cracked in twain.

"Return to your homes, unwelcome ones, in more-or-less as whole as you may be, or as ashes upon the winds; pick your doom! I will grant it for you easily," I challenged them, circling around Boromir's body as I drug my staff through the dirt at his feet, and infused the circle with an effort of will.

I felt the slight snap of the protective field solidify, and turned away from him at last. "Stay put and you will be safe." I ordered him before several more of the Orcs charged, under orders of their own.

I had no sword to my name here, but having gathered my staff, and my force rings as well at a thought, I concentrated on the grip of my sword-cane and reached down to my left hip, and felt the hilt appear there with little effort.

* * *

><p><strong>A taste of alternative <em>Arda<em>. Eventually scrapped this in favor of the chapter we got, and I found it again in my archives while looking for a section of _Fallen King_'s future I can work into the coming chapter, both wrote about a year and a half ago. I think I'll start slinging in solely Dresden-based pieces alongside the Potterverse.**


	20. 20: And the fourth champion is

The goblet paled for a moment, as if sorting through several qualified students and deeming which were worthy and which were not, before it suddenly spewed forth a torrent of blue flames and a single, scorched, piece of parchment.

Headmaster Dumbledore reached up with one aged hand and caught the fickle fragment between his long and spindly fingers, and peering down the crook of his nose the eldest living wizard within Scotland, and indeed Greater Britain as a whole, called out in a firm tone, "Our first Triwizard Tournament competitor.. is _Fleur Delacour!_"

Shouts and cheers rang out from her school's students as Fleur rose and marched past them, her nose held high in the air as if their words and praise were beneath her.

"Through the door behind the staff table, lass," he instructed when she approached. She nodded a fraction and continued on her way into the back room.

Only after the door had shut and she had fully departed the room did the goblet grow pale once more, and the noise fell into a hushed and harried silence.

Several more lengthy seconds passed before the next eruption took place, and as before Professor Dumbledore grasped the sheet in midair and perused it but a moment before announcing the next competitor.

"Our second Triwizard Tournament participant is... _Victor Krum!_" His voice reverberated off of the walls and was drowned out by the noise of the Durmstrang students howling in exuberation.

Krum slouched his way forward and nodded in response to the kindly gesture toward the same room his opponent had just disappeared through.

As the door clanged closed the silence that accompanied the dimming of the goblet was palpable- here, now, the Hogwarts champion would emerge.

A longer period than either of the two before it combined occurred, as if the goblet could sense the tenseness in the air and the eagerness to have the name that would represent them.

At last, it overflowed once more and the final, singed scrap was taken into hand. Professor Dumbledore stared down at the name with only a hint of a smile betrayed by his beard twitching, and then he turned toward the students and said, in a calm, quiet tone, "And our third and final Triwizard Tournament competitor is... _Cedric Diggory!_"

His voice was completely lost in the chorus of heavy-slaps, cries of joy, and all and all a general uproar of approval. Cedric smiled benignly at the attention and waved a hand around in embarrassment at all the noise, but he made no hurry toward the door and seemed to be savoring the experience.

As he too vanished out of the Great Hall, the headmaster began to speak again. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for-" and there his voice paused as the goblet grew dim for a fourth time. He turned in suspicion toward it and watched as the flames flashed forth unexpectedly quickly, rendering up but a single, hastily scrawled upon sheet.

There was no joy evident at the name listed therein. He looked up to the rest of the staff table and said, softly and almost tonelessly, "Albus Dumbledore."

* * *

><p>"Well, rules are rules, Dumbledore," Ludo Bagman concluded cheerfully, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet as if the very concept of a hundred and sixty year old wizard competing against three students was something to not only be excited about, but indeed very much proud of.<p>

The headmaster glanced toward the ancient lawbook in Barty Crouch's hands and stepped forward. "Be that as it may, I believe we may make an exception. Surely the Goblet of Fire would not jeopardize the safety of the competitors merely to include a fourth member," he objected lightly yet firmly.

Crouch seemed to be in something of a daze as his fingers flicked through page after page, and his eyes though distant sped over several dozen lines a minute, almost rushing in their haste to confirm or deny the most outrageous interruption to what had otherwise been a fairly straightforward affair.

The three official competitors looked uncomfortable as they consorted with their nearest instructor, or head of house as it were for Cedric Diggory.

After close to ten full minutes Crouch let out a ragged sigh and set the object aside. "There is, in full clarity, no refutable option; once the Goblet of Fire has ejected a Champion's name, by the order of the Wizard's Council and through its modern day successor, the Ministry of Magic, a binding contract between Man and Tournament is settled into place." He explained wearily.

"Strictly refusing to participate after your name has been cast will elect the magically binding contract that has been established into activating; what that may entail is unknown to its fullest limits, as no mention can be found of a competitor turning down the rite of participation." He clarified and leaned back against the nearest table, then sat down abruptly.

"Well, er, as I was saying; nothing to it, Dumbledore, nothing to it at all! I'm not quite sure how it's happened, but just think of the publicity!" Ludo Bagman carried on from where he had stopped earlier.

Professor Dumbledore frowned rather heavily. "Ludo, kindly reel in your enthusiasm. I have no intention of completing any of the tasks, let alone surpassing those who have earned the right to enter. I shall consider myself to be little more than a lawn decoration from the moment the clock begins until the moment the last true champion finishes, and as such take the proper zero all the way across as should be expected." He responded with a chiding tone to his voice.

Ludo frowned back at him, as if realizing what he had been advocating, and muttered quietly to himself before stepping back and allowing the other two heads of school to approach.

"Now see here, Dumblydore," began the half-giantess. He stood up a fraction taller.

"I am seeing quite clearly, Madam Maxime. I am unsure how or to what purposes this has occurred, but I shall do my very best to remain in the shadows and allow each of our students their chance to shine- as I was just reminding Ludo, it is they who chose to enter this tournament, and they whom deserve all the glory for it. I will do my steadfast to oblige the word of law of the competition, but no further, and certainly not in its spirit." He assured her and Karkoroff nearby.

* * *

><p>Later that night, Harry Potter reclined into his bed with a flat smile upon his face, while Fred and George stood nearby fanning him with giant feathers.<p>

"And that, gentlemen, is how you out-hoodwink the opposition. I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will make for a far more satisfying fourth-competitor than I would," the from-the-future boy wizard told them.

After all, it had been _their_ idea some time down the road. A little energy, effort, and expenditure later, and the name of Harry Potter on that little scrap of parchment paper that Barty Crouch Jr was putting into the Goblet of Fire magically transfigured itself in mid-air to represent the head of Hogwarts instead, all without him being any the wiser for it.

Harry had something in mind for the Death Eater, but only after another few days to rest and recover- it was no mean feat to overcome the boundaries of time and space by nine months or so with a Timeturner.

"Well done, mate, but now what?" Fred questioned somewhat more happily, not at all ashamed to be bowing to the better prankster- for the moment.

They were already planning how to surpass him, but risking your sanity and the space-time continuum was giving them no end of trouble on trying to work around as to how they could possibly prove the more daring.

It was, quite simply, both invigorating and infuriating at the same time.

"I was thinking about releasing the real Alastor Moody, bringing him up to the Room of Requirements and time-turning until he was up to good health again," Harry began with his eyes closed.

"After that I figured, after going back to the moment I freed him, I'd give him back his wand and let him have a go at the fake Professor Moody and watch the fireworks from the doorway. No matter what, it's not likely that Crouch Jr will get offed in the process, and we can spare everyone the hassle of finding out until the reverse would have been true, so that Professor Dumbledore can continue to compete in the tournament." Harry paused and yawned wearily.

"Of course, getting Mister Moody to agree with all of this will be another matter. He might just want to go straight to Professor Dumbledore and explain the situation. I have the feeling the prank won't go over very well either way, but after the shite I'll have to deal with next year, I doubt it will alter our relationship very much at all."

"What happened next year?" Fred asked curiously.

Harry wasn't so exhausted not to recognize the whirl of thoughts in the Weasley's question. "No you don't," he denied quietly, then reconsidered. "Y'know what? Alright, here. You two could help make it more interesting anyway. Minister Fudge is going to start interfering in the school's running next year and try to screw us all over, with me and Professor Dumbledore being the greatest sources of ire. I'm happy to say I became a temporary Defense instructor, unofficially as it was, to most of the students in our year and some of yours as well."

* * *

><p><strong>A one-off idea I had for a few days. Simple nonsense.<strong>


	21. 21: XO 4, Bleach(awful, ignore, please)

"I have overcome death itself, Harry Potter- I have stood upon the brink of passing on from this pitiful world and chosen to turn back from it, to endure and survive the cold enclosure of the beyond! What do you think you may do to me that would be great enough to match this feat? What do you possess that is capable of instilling a fear of anything more this world has yet to offer? I am _immortal_, boy; I will outlast all of your hopes and desires and grind the face of my opposition into the cold, uncaring, unforgiving grindstone of reality- no one who takes up wand or mere thought against me shall be allowed to carry on in the waking world!" Lord Voldemort ranted with his arrogance and power clearly consuming him from the inside out.

Harry Potter flicked his wand out to the side of the graveyard where they met, letting it sail out over the crowd of gathered Death Eaters and to crash against the stone reaper perched over a sullen and defiled grave beneath it. He had met the real unliving creatures in his time, and the stone figure was but a passing imitation of their true likeness, gaunt and grimly smiling as it was. Voldemort frowned at his casual display and discarding of his one tool that might have made a difference in their coming match, and he stepped forward with his anger beginning to grow. "You fool! I will not allow fourteen years of suffering to end on a moments notice! Pick up your wand, _boy_, and face me like the Wizard you are!" He commanded heavily and most definitely furiously.

Harry ignored it. "I don't need a wand to kill you, Voldemort. I don't need a simple construct of holly and phoenix feather, a base object to focus my magic through, to overcome you. I have long since learned alternative ways to bring my magic to the surface, long since surpassed the point you thought you had raised yourself toward, toward a pitiful height of potency with a shaft of wood held within your grasp- I am beyond focused magic and deep within wandless magic, stronger than you could ever hope to be or dream of matching if you lived a thousand years more. Cast what you will, Voldemort, and watch as I deny and deflect your every intention without a focus in my hands! Watch as I do exactly what I did when I was less than a full year old, and watch as I tear your soul from your body and raze it to the spectral ashes that the reapers hunger for and will gladly devour when this futile situation reaches its inevitable conclusion!" He matched the Dark Lord word for word in arrogance and power, telling no lie in his message of forewarning.

Voldemort hissed lowly, akin to the snake his body had so nearly become alike to, and with a flash like lightning he directed the _Killing Curse_ forward in his rage.

Harry snatched something unseen from his hip and slashed his arm across the air before his face, bending the form of reality into a mirror-like reflection and rebounding the most potent of the _Unforgivables_ back at the one who had cast it at twice the speed.

Voldemort could not dodge at that speed- it struck him in the center of the forehead and speared a knut sized hole straight through the freshly expanded skull, carved a path into the middle of the right and left halves of his brain, and dropped him dead upon his knees, arms held uselessly by his side, as his neck craned back and stared up at the cloudless night sky.

A hushed silence fell upon the graveyard of Little Hangleton at that, as the gathered Death Eaters observed their master's disgrace and death in-person and from very nearly point blank range. Harry thrust his body forward and speared the ethereal wisps of smoke that began to emanate up from the flesh beneath it, as the wraith of Voldemort was returned into that which he had so briefly succeeded from. Anguish untold spread across his mangled, twisted features, as his return to living flesh and mortal body was taken from him by the very same foe that had destroyed his born-in form. Harry swung his unseen object toward the wrath, but to Voldemort's eyes, he saw clearly now the spiritual weapon clasped in the boy-wizards hands.

The Japanese styled sword was long and thin, white as bone marrow, and saturated in his spiritual energy- a shade of emerald green so dark, so black and twisted with power hitherto hidden from view, that it pulsated in shades of violence and thrummed with promised vengeance. Here he turned to flee, having espied a weapon that could indeed harm him, but his speed was diminished and his distant mind hazy with his fear and doubts, and a full third of his body was cut off by the first slash of that deathly katana. His sunken lips pulled part and a bellow of misery lanced out into the quiet air, a screech of hideous pain and visceral depth.

Harry carried forward unaffected and brought his zanpakutou around for the next attack, carving another spread of unliving energy free as it was purified and reduced to the barest aspect of spiritual energy, reiryoku. "You've been a pest for all too long on this world, Tom. Enjoy your non-afterlife as particles offered up to the first hungry hollow that comes forward for it," Harry said with out emotion suffusing his tones. It was a flat, empty message, as his own reatsu began to spiral in the night sky like a beacon for any nearby and roaming creature.

He contemplated the merits of leaving what remained of Voldemort to them, in the hope that perhaps his prophecised nemesis would be able to survive the process and be reborn into a Menos Grande, that he might show enough resolution to endure into Gillian of the highest class and come back as an Adjuchas, and later still perhaps become an Arrancar proper.

Then he shoved his sword through the wraiths purplish, transparent skull and burned his energy apart into reiryoku ashes, because the sooner he got rid of Voldemort and escaped the fucked up hold this dimension had on magic, afterlife, and everything therein and could return to a world that was _normal_ again, the better. He didn't even know how it was possible for his personality to bend as it seemingly always did whenever he hung around too long on one of these worlds, but he was going to make sure he shoved the katana deep within his armory and try to forget it even existed once he was done. He didn't need _another_ personality clashing with him, and he was quite sure this screwed up version that was thinking of sparing Voldemort would clash time and again to try and keep him here if he left it unchecked.

* * *

><p><strong>Ugh, Bleach. Why did I write this way back when? A <em>potential<em> piece of history for the DimensionHopping!Harry we are seeing in Last Dragonrider, but don't bloody count on it.**


	22. 22: A Wyvern Tournament

"The problem, Minister, is that Romania is still upset after the incidents at the Quidditch World Cup a month ago. They are refusing to acknowledge our official messages and, frankly, I do not blame them," Crouch delivered his report in his clipped, no-nonsense tone.

At the man's left elbow Ludo Bagman shook his head back and forth several times, making a low tsking noise, oblivious to the chagrin of the two elder men about him.

"It makes no sense- one or two brawls, maybe a broken nose here and there," Bagman started, stepping away from Crouch to pace the floor as he spoke, "but ignoring our owls- and _really_, blocking our envoys at the _border_, as if it were our _intention _to break their Ministers femur- I must say, Minister Fudge, this does not bode well toward the first task." He contributed in one long ramble.

Minister Fudge grimaced.

"Ludo, the Romanian's do not _have_ a ministry, and it was their ruling monarchy who was put into a coma during the chaos at the World Cup! Merlin's beard, do you even read the Prophet any more?" He asked exasperatedly.

Bagman's eyebrows rose. "But what does that have to do with our lack of Dragons?" He asked in return.

Fudge ground his teeth together. "Exactly that! It means that there will _be no dragons, _period, end of sentence!" He responded furiously.

Bagman stopped pacing altogether, adopting a look of slow horror.

"But Minister, the Dragons were a prime selling feature for the Triwizard Tournament! The peoples were promised great winged leathery lizards, sir, some firebreathing and others not- and I signed an awful lot of contracts and negotiations in the process with that particular expectation!" He stated, aghast.

Crouch stood up a little straighter. "Mr. Bagman, if you will not contain yourself and your emotions, than I expect you to vacate the premises while the Minister and I finish establishing what must be done for the first task- do not respond! I have seen and confirmed every sheet you have mentioned before it was even passed to this desk," he stated firmly and not a little impatiently.

Bagman blinked once, then slumped his shoulders and sat down in his chair again, looking more than a little resigned to some unknown, terrible fate.

The other two men checked their tempers and exchanged a silent communication at a glance. A moment later Crouch sat down in his own chair again as well, leaning forward.

"I am afraid that he _does_ have a point. Trades were opened up between various groups and families, some international, in an attempt to reestablish good faith after the Quidditch World Cup disaster. A certain degree of gold exchanged vaults at the mention of, and I quote, 'great winged leathery lizards'," he said.

Minister Fudge scowled. "And that is impossible at the moment, Barty, so what is your point?" He asked.

Crouch did not smile, but the taut lines of his face relaxed around the corners. "No where in our talks did the term 'Dragon' become cemented. I foresaw something of this nature, Minister, and have acted accordingly in our terms to be sure that certain assumptions were accepted in the process."

The Minister's expression turned from frustration to muddled confusion.

"What, exactly, do you mean?"

"While Romania is certainly the established world-domain of Dragons, they do not hold a claim to all 'great winged leathery lizards'. Associates in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures have confirmed that a clan of Wyverns is thriving well and actively just across the border, in Bulgaria."

* * *

><p><em>Several months later<em>

* * *

><p>"Lady and gentlewizards," Ludo Bagman greeted warmly as the four Champions entered the tent.<p>

"In this first task, you will face a feat of outstanding strength, courage, remarkable speed, and cunning. I warn you- do not take this challenge lightly! Your individual skills will play a most important role in the outcome and, somewhat more dearly, your lives, I am afraid to say." He told them.

Cedric looked at the others and then to the small, purple sack dangling from the older wizards belt.

"Now!" clapping his hands together in delight, Ludo hefted the sack into the air and untied it from the strap keeping it in place with a deft motion, holding out the sack so that the embellished golden _'W'_ at the front gleamed in the torchlight.

"Alphabetically, last names first; Delacour, Diggory, Krum, and Potter!" He stated.

Ludo grinned widely at her as Fleur stepped up and reached for the open bag, hesitating at whatever lay within, but after a moments thought she delved in and plucked at something.

Almost as soon she let out a quiet yelp as the miniature creature nipped and held on tightly.

"Very good, Miss Delacour, _very_ good indeed! Mr. Diggory!" He said as Fleur drew back with a blank look on her face and seemingly two puncture marks in the index finger that dripped a single, slow dewdrop of blood.

Her other hand wrapped around whatever invisible thing she held, but the compulsion charm on it kept her silent for the moment, and she took a seat in the nearest chair as she tried to catalog what information she knew of her opponent.

Cedric chose to plunge his whole fist into the bag after seeing Fleur's reaction, and for his troubles he too let out a note of pain as something with far more invisible teeth clamped down upon his middle knuckle, given several uniform, 'u' shaped marks.

"Mr. Krum!" Ludo stated, teeth shining in the light at the slight apprehension apparent on the Bulgarian wizards face. "Vat... is this?" He asked slowly.

"Now, now, that would be spoiling the surprise, my good fellow! Simply choose from what remains," Ludo chided him lightly.

Warily Krum stepped up and shoved his hand quickly into the first bag, gritting his teeth as multiple lacerations opened up along his fleshy digit. He managed a vicious sounding swear just before his mouth was forcibly closed, and he slouched off to do much as the previous opposition were.

"And, last but most assuredly not least, Mr. Potter!" Ludo declared theatrically.

Harry ignored the tone and cast a simple nerve-numbing and flesh-hardener to his left hand before he plunged it into the bag.

Unlike the others, he felt no pain and gave no sign when he lifted his hand, and the tiny, snake-like, winged lizard from the bag. He had never seen an animal like it, but after three years in the wizarding world, he knew that it could mean little good.

"Now that you have each laid claim to your individual course in the coming round, the rules stipulate that you be given a period of time no lesser than fifteen minutes to marshal your imagination and repertoire," he told the four of them.

Bringing his wand up, Ludo carved an ornate, fiery orange hourglass into the air, which promptly began to drip molten bolts down from the top into the bottom.

"Your time has begun! Good luck," Ludo said jovially, clapping Harry in particular on the shoulder as he was the nearest Champion, and then the older wizard departed through the flaps at the front of the tent with a smile every bit as large as Lockhart had ever managed.

Opening his mouth, Harry found that his tongue would not move as he tried to say something regarding the mysterious beast still clinging to his flesh.

_Bugger. I was hoping they were just stunned by whatever they pulled out, but it really is a silencing charm of sorts, isn't it?_

Exhaling, the boy-who-lived-and-planned-to-do-so-longer-still prodded the serpentine thing with the tip of his wand. It made a deep, gurgling hiss from around his flesh in response, and so he nudged it again.

On the fourth such action it suddenly released his finger to whip around and clamp down on the end of the holly construct. Harry quickly pulled his hand away and shook it to bring some feeling back, dismayed at the speed with which it had swapped targets- less than half a bloody second.

He hadn't even blinked and he _still_ missed it.

_Well, so long as you're clinging to the end, lets see how you like a little dos__e__ of magic._

He managed to say aloud, "_Stupefy!_"

A burst of red rushed from the tip down into its gullet, and the whole body went straight and stiffened tautly in response.

His action had gathered the attention of Cedric and Fleur.

Again, he attempted to convey anything aloud, but his lips just flapped in the breeze, much to his chagrin.

After a moment he held his wand length-wise before himself and tapped the invisible-to-their-eyes lizard with a finger, then pressed his thumb to the head and used his index finger to cross down the back to the end of its tail.

Cedric nodded at him, giving a thumbs up, before grimacing and shaking his own unseen lizard-or-worse in the air a few times.

Harry grinned back at him good-naturedly.

Fleur merely turned her attention back toward her own subject of ire after a moment, and Krum hadn't bothered to focus on anyone else since seeing what he had to face down.

Turning his focus back to the creature, the youngest Champion considered the situation again.

_Stupefy only worked because I got it in the mouth. If this is just a scale model, I doubt I'm going to have time to stun it in the jowls before it can engulf me up to the shoulder._

Another spell came to mind, but first he had to get it off the end of his wand to be sure.

"_Expelliarmus!_"

With a mild thump, the hold its fangs had was torn free and slammed it into the ground a few feet away. He followed it up with another of his recently acquired dualing spells, a mild bludgeoner.

"_Impacto Duos!_"

Despite the size difference, the diminutive imitation lay unscratched by the spell once the explosion of dirt and dust clouds two feet wide settled down.

That, alone, sent a wave of doubt coursing through his mind. He had seen that very spell destroy a wall during his training period, and while he was no master at casting it, the intention and motions of his wand had been fairly accurate to the book.

With a quiet summoner, Harry caught the lizard and noted that he was wrong; flecks of dirt had ripped minute holes through the otherwise-unruffled wings across its back.

_Could it be weak to earth based magic, then?_

His eyebrows came together. He could honestly say that he knew next to nothing about that field, and even if he did, the few bits and pieces he had read up on stated that it was an energy-consumptive branch.

Before he knew it a touch of mild warmth suffused his wand-arm.

Snapping his gaze down to it he saw that a tendril of flame had extended from the hourglass, and each of the other Champions were likewise caught.

A moment later, from the stands a dozen feet away, the amplified voice of Ludo Bagman began to speak.

"_Welcome, one and all, to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament! In the minutes ahead, a spectacular demonstration of France's finest magical talent will step forward against a mythical beast just shy of the status of a fully grown dragon!_ _Prepare yourselves for a challenge not observed in over six centuries! Miss Delacour, please come forth and make your stand for victory!_"

Looking decidedly unhappy, Fleur marched out of the tent and toward the tunnel leading into the Quidditch Stadium, having already risen to her feet in the middle of Ludo's speech.

The noise of the crowd cheering and shouting followed as she emerged, and Ludo began again.

"_Here we are, ladies and gentlewizards! Now facing Miss Delacour, put your hands together for- and be sure your ward-necklace is glowing in preparation- from the land of Bulgaria... a Wyvern!_"

Harry looked down at the now-named lizard in his hands, as the crowd applauded somewhat slowly. He still had no idea what truly worked against the species, but when he looked at the other two, Cedric's expression confirmed his dismay.

"_Any ideas?_" Harry managed to mouth at him. Cedric shook his head.

Whatever else was happening in the stadium, the noise was apparently being filtered out now by the first-line of defensive and containment wards, giving him no clues of what Fleur was doing, either.

Resigning himself to the fact that the coming challenge would put him in more imminent danger than quite possibly any other time this year, Harry waited for his turn.

As he stood there trying to figure out something that might possibly help him here, he found it strangely amusing that his hope did not wane- here was a challenge that might very well kill him before anyone could possibly murder him directly, and yet he just couldn't find it in himself to feel the fear that such a possibility should have evoked.

_Perhaps facing down Voldemort four times has helped,_ he thought idly, _and a Wyvern _can't_ be more fierce or instantly deadly than a Basilisk._

Feeling a bit of strength return to his determination, Harry looked at the still-stupefied miniature with a renewed intensity.  
><em><br>All of my school years have been set up like this, haven't they?_ _Even the encounter with Aragog and his blasted children proved that, despite the odds, their is always a chance to survive._

Unable to cast any further spells while the hourglass held him by the wrist, Harry turned the rest of his thoughts toward what little he had learned of Earthen magic until, after almost an hour, his own name was called out from the stadium.

* * *

><p>"<em>And now, entering the stadium at this very moment, is our very own scion of wizarding brilliance and intrigue, a youth who has stood toe-to-toe with He-who-must-not-be-named twice- and most recently at the tender age of eleven! A student who faced down the Dementor horde just four months ago and emerged healthy and alive! Last yet most assuredly not <em>least_, please welcome Harry Potter!_"

Harry emerged to a warm applause, a small smile on his face. He knew what he would do, and it would either serve him well, or end in his injury and defeat, if not death- though with Professor Dumbledore directly within the field with the other judges, that particular result did not seem as likely now as it had prior.

As the clapping concluded Ludo gave the signal for the Wyvern to be brought out, and six wizards levitated in a cage from the other side of the stadium. What dwelt within it was a far more imposing sight than his little replica figure;

Coiled up upon the lower tail, the gray-bodied Wyvern had skin that was rough and multifaceted in such a way that it appeared more like fine gravel, the wings wrapped loosely down by the underbody.

The head of the beast angled almost into a wedge shape, with the two dark brown eyes half-lidded against the lights in the stadium. The maw, for the moment, remained shut tight as the head tilted and swayed, and when the cage was within twenty meters of his body, one of the handlers stuck a stick in with one of his old Quidditch jerseys dangling from it.

The meaning for that became apparent as the Wyvern inhaled deeply and, between one instant and the next, lashed forward to swallow the stick up to half a foot outside of the cage.

* * *

><p><strong>A go at Independent!Harry, of sorts. Mostly with the premise that no Dragons could be wrangled up after a more incensed, botched up World Cup. Never took it any further than this.<br>**


	23. 23: 3 Dresden pieces

The taxi pulled up outside of a typically clean looking, all-american kind of house, surrounded by a white-picket fence and immaculately kept garden.

"Out." Dresden ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. The young woman snuggled in-between him and Sirius huffed as she clambered over the older wizards lap and threw the door open, nearly falling on her face in the process.

Sirius kept his eyes above her delicately exposed position and spared Dresden a mangled look that was a cross between questioning, confusion, dismay, and weariness.

Once she was on her feet proper she turned around and glared at the younger wizard. He stepped out of his own side a moment later and ducked back down long enough to instruct Sirius to haul out as well.

"You. In." Dresden ordered monotonously with a stiff finger directed toward the front porch of the house they had just pulled up before. Her glare intensified and she stood their obstinately, refusing to budge another inch.

Sirius sat where he was trying not to appreciate the amount of skin she was showing off, and he noted that the cab driver was doing just the opposite and then some. "Hey!" he protested.

The cabbie scowled and directed his gaze slightly lower. A moment later and a hiss of electricity failing cropped up within the engine, audible to everyone present as the tension in the air between Dresden and the young woman reached a fever pitch.

Sirius pushed his way past her before he could experience another lousy driving incident, and as he passed he swept an arm around her waist and dragged her with him - much to her protests.

Dresden slammed the door shut on his side and marched around to join them without a backward glance at the smoke rushing up from beneath the cab's hood.

Once on the porch and with a considerably more angry Molly than even when she had been picked up at the station, Dresden knocked firmly on the door and waited. After a few moments the door cracked a millimeter and a small eye stared out at them, then it was swung wide open with a happy shout and a young boy surged forward to wrap his arms around her legs tightly.

She smiled weakly down at her youngest brother even as she reached down and pried him away. Roughly a moment later a woman a good bit older, but nevertheless carrying the same rough features, appeared in the open doorway.

"_Molly!_"

"Charity."

"_Dresden!_"

"_Molly!_"

"Michael."

"Harry?"

"Da-da?"

"No, Harry senior."

"Is this a soap opera or something?"

"_Molly!_"

Several voices spoke over one another in near-enough quick-succession as Molly's mother and father filled in the door, and Dresden greeted them in turn.

Both of the Carpenter parents dragged their daughter forward and into a more embarrassing hug than their son had.

* * *

><p>Almost half an hour later and Michael stepped out onto the porch where Sirius and Dresden had been left standing.<p>

He had a troubled look in his eyes despite the wearisome and faint smile at the edge of his lips, and he both offered and than vigorously shook Dresden's hand after a moment.

"Thank you, Harry," he said sincerely. "We've haven't spoken for... so long now. I hoped she would turn up well, and thanks to you and His guidance, she has."

Dresden looked pained at the words. "Don't mention it. I kind of need to tell you something regarding _Him_," he said.

Michael frowned, and his posture shifted over slowly from one of relief to one of concern. "When you say _Him_, do you mean...?" he glanced heavenward for a few moments, then lowered his head and murmured something softly beneath his breath.

Dresden nodded once the other man looked up again. "Shiro's sword, to be precise." He said, voice clearly reluctant to go into this.

"What about it, Harry?"

"Its... gone. Destroyed." Michael's eyes widened considerably and he leaned back as if the words were a physical blow.

* * *

><p><strong>One of the earlier takes on Sirius Interruptions after leaving the police station. Thankfully I chose to keep rewriting until we got what we got.<strong>

**Next up is an attempt to pick up where Ghost Story ended. Brief warning over strong language a bit down.**

* * *

><p>Mab has interesting ideas on physical therapy.<p>

For instance? Dueling the Fetches.

That'll sure as hell motivate your six-month-atrophied near-corpse into dancing, alright.

In all honesty it wasn't so much 'dueling' in the traditional sense of slinging magic as it was a free-for-all physical melee meant to wake up the sleeping, numbed over nerves and tendons all throughout my body - and hey, if I got knocked halfway across the room and back and forth again like a tennis ball, at least it was motivation to _move faster_ next time, right?

Yeah. Sure.

Everything from my ear-tips down to my toenails had been left laying down in the same posture for so long that the underlying muscles were almost nonexistent by the time my spirit finally returned and let me tell you what, I was well aware of _all and each_ _of them_ when I finally made to stir and sit up.

Half of the Chicagoan residents on the edges of Lake Michigan were probably awoken by the agonized echoes of noise that escaped my mouth before Mab finally opened up a Way back to the Nevernever.

I felt like I had been crippled again. I remember fading out of consciousness and being dredged back through the fuzzy edges several times over the next week until the morning my godmother, the Leanansidhe, stopped in.

I still remember our conversation distantly. To paraphrase?

She told me to get up. I was Winter now, no longer free to laze about like a Summer troll and recover at my own paces.

I responded by throwing up on her, which may or may not have been a calculated intention given the painful spasm of muscles along my stomach the entire time I was awake.

I'd like to say the pain was worth the look on her face, but really? It wasn't. She cleaned herself off with a snap of the fingers before yanking me up to my feet and forcing my body to march along in her wake to the throne room.

Most of what happened after we left the island of Demonreach behind to the time when I was finally able to stand and walk about again without retching is one long, painful blank.

I'm happy to say I have no intention to remember that period of time, either.

To the point at hand; the Fetches. Mab's personal assassination squadron. I had knocked off their de facto leader, Scarecrow, a few years ago when it kidnapped my-soon-to-be-apprentice Molly Carpenter in a general clusterfuck of chaos and magic-gone-wrong.

I'd like to claim the victory as wholly due to my calm, experienced skills, but who am I kidding? I'm anything but calm in the heat of battle, and my experience tends to get me _into_ the situation rather than _out_ of it.

And I might have had the grasshoppers mother, Charity Carpenter, leading the charge with me in full-on custom-crafted armor and a very large sword.

Should I add that I had some other friends and family on hand, or that it was mostly thanks to an unknown gift of Summer Flame, or do you kinda get the picture already?

Fetches are hardy, resilient, intelligent, vindictive, and like most things these days, shape-shifters.

And I had killed one of their own.

Did I mention vindictive yet? Their were no gentle swats when they learned they had free-reign to beat the tar out of me just shy of inducing fatal wounding, and I was forced to learn first-hand how efficient they could be in getting their vengeance during the early months.

Eventually I began to recover and make some groundwork, as the wellspring of Winter magic flowing like a frozen sludge through out my veins thawed and spread more easily and quickly, drawn toward the surface to patch up the damages.

By the third month I had reached a kind of plateau, where my body could snap-to-and-fro with a similar agility as I had once possessed.

At that point and now that Mab knew I could physically compete with the ministrations of her loyal servants she stepped progress up to the next degree.

One-on-one matches were initiated where I would face off against the lowest Fetch on their totem-pole, leaving me to try and outlast the vicious little bastard in all its wiry, muscle-bound, slithering glory until one of us were declared the victor.

I still have scars raking across my chest, the side of my neck, and in a few other places best left unmentioned to preserve what dignity I still have to hold onto, but I fought and matched it tooth for tooth and nail for nail and gave as much as I got, magic wise, to hold my own.

I remember blacking out more than once and waking up in my godmothers arms as the worst sections were frozen over and encased in slabs of ice, and the burning pain of it as she whispered things to sooth the worst of it and lull me back to slumber until my magic had finished knitting me back together again.

Whether or not Lea was doing that on Mab's orders or if she merely had other intentions at heart I still don't know, and she has yet to elaborate.

* * *

><p><strong>Written way back in November '11. Wow. Never got any further before abandoning it.<strong>

**Here's another go at picking up where Ghost Story left off. Looking back at it after finishing Cold Days yesterday, man. Quite the difference.**

* * *

><p>It had been roughly half a year since I was last able to step out into the real world of my own volition. True, Mab had given me my freewill to act as I deemed necessary in the role of Winter Knight, but she had chosen to omit the details of how busy I was going to be fulfilling that role.<p>

Because she had been away from her throne at the heart of Winter and thus unable to oversee and corral the forces therein against the inevitable Summer strike, her daughter and the Winter Lady, Maeve, had stepped up to watch over things with the Leanansidhe acting as adviser and supervisor.

That was supposed to change once Mab was free of her obligation to keep my alive and return to her throne, only Maeve wasn't quite so willing to abandon the boost to her own prestige and prowess that came with sitting in it; effectively, she _was_ the Queen, or whom so ever sits there is to be treated as in the absence of the true ruler.

Helping to remind her of her own position in the Court had been one of Mab's very first official orders, and let there be no doubts that while Maeve may appear to be an inexperienced brat with delusions of her own grandeur from time to time, she was no push over when it comes to holding her own at the center of her power.

I doubt the former Summer Lady, Aurora, would have tried to knock off her own Queen to take over the higher position of power, but given what she had done to her own Knight it wouldn't really surprise me; the Sidhe are as mad in that way as the vanilla mortals they rely on for amusement and growth, and having put down one Lady who I didn't really have that much against, I wasn't nearly so concerned about doing the same to one that had been little more than a thorn in my side for years.

Mab retreated with Lea at her side after the initial refusal to accede the throne and subsequently failed preemptive attack took place, and left me to slug it out with Maeve in the middle of the throne room.

It might have been that my body hadn't moved in half a year at that time, but every twinge of my muscles screamed in pain despite the power thrumming through them, and I wasn't nearly as agile or quick on my feet as the Winter Lady on her own home turf.

Not to mention the entire floor was nothing but _ice_, and moss-covered boots do not tend to grip well in such conditions.

"You would have been a fine servant if my mother hadn't gotten her claws into you first, Dresden," she called over the distance while I was busy shuffling like an idiot to get back my balance and recover from the loss of Mab at my side.

From her tone she was more than a little pissed off at Lea defending the true Queen and than shanghaiing her away to safety, and I was the only obstacle standing, or rather sliding all over the place, in her way.

"Perhaps I'll keep you around like my mother did _Slate _after the fact; an abused and broken plaything!" when she finished speaking Maeve brought up her left hand and the flakes of snow blowing in from the windows began to gather before her and multiply as they stacked together, forming dense and widening slabs of frost.

I bit out a low and ugly exclamation before giving up on ever finding my footing again and just sprawling on my ass. The chill burned through my duster, but all I cared about at that moment was doing something about her attack before she could pound my head into the floor with that array of growing ice-cubes.

Smiling vindictively at my seeming-submission Maeve thrust her fingers out and the snowy and very heavy assault dropped to the floor with a _thud _before surging forward, and I dug into the well of power in the center of my chest and felt the quiet, suffusing warmth of Soulfire press against the harsh and scraping cold of my mantle.

For just a fraction I waffled on the decision of which source to dip into, not wanting to deplete my already exhausted spirit from the beatdown I had given Corpsetakers wraith- but I doubted anything I could work with Winter-fueled magic would take while Maeve sat on that throne.

Heat blossomed in my chest and ran up and down my spine as I pulled my will in and yelled out the spell, "_Pyrofuego!_" and around me time seemed to come to a crawl as the giant blocks of ice bore down on my form with scant feet to spare.

A stream of white fire wrapped in silver threads of ice-like motes along the edges erupted from my upraised palms as I leaned back further and bore a three-foot wide hole through the objects coming toward me at the last moment, and it carried on and drove into the barricade Maeve raised on her own with a startled shout.

As it had been with the former Duke Paulo Ortega of the now defunct-Red Court, and later his wife, a contest of wills filled the air between the two of us.

Maeve had whatever power of her own enhanced by the ruling position of all of Winter suffusing her magic, while I had the true power of the human soul as gifted by an archangel being channeled through my own.

Neither of us was in the top-position to take advantage of those facts; myself because of how little Soulfire I had to use, and her for being the Lady while her mother still lived, no matter the technicalities. Maybe it was Mother Winter deciding she didn't like her granddaughter all that much, or at least enough to let her take over in this eon, but the full bang for her buck wasn't being run through the Lady.

She screamed something I couldn't quite understand beyond the rage before I felt her strength ebb and she threw herself over the edge of the armrest, tumbling ass over toes as the stream of flame crashed against the enduring throne and splashed along the surface a split-second later.

I relinquished the flow to avoid killing myself _again_.

The result left me panting for breath with a hand clutched to my chest, and I watched through a dim gaze as Maeve shuddered on her back for a few moments, breathing sharply and rapidly as her breasts heaved beneath that ridiculously tight shirt.

I closed my eyes as my vision began to swim hazily and the utter cold at my own back returned with a clear chill that seemed to seep into my bones, reminding me quite distinctly of the time with Evil Bob and tricked me into taking a mote of Death into my system several years before. I was lucky to have rejected it and sealed him away before the black magic could take full effect, but there was no such option now, and the stray thought crossed my fatigued mind that I might have just fatally exhausted my soul's energy.

What felt to be minutes trickled by without the effect growing any worse or relieving itself, however. I slowly stirred back to full consciousness and watched as my breath escaped in heavy rasps across the air, and little by little the unbearable cold in my marrow began to retreat and leave behind a dull numbness.

I rolled onto my elbows and knees and groaned. A faint noise back toward the throne made me twitch and look toward in Maeve's direction.

Lea had returned and by the looks of things, she did not approve of the Winter Lady's attempt to usurp the throne. As had been done to her by Mab a few years ago, the Leanansidhe encased Maeve in a glacier of ice up to her dreadlocks.

How Maeve would survive like that I didn't know, and frankly I didn't much care, either. I dragged myself over the floor and Lea turned toward me with an upraised eyebrow and a quirk in her full lips.

"Why-ever are you crawling along like one of my wounded Hellhounds, Harry? Do you wish to join them that much?" she asked me in genuine curiosity.

I tried pushing to my knees and only tumbled over sideways. "How the hell do you expect me to stand up? And how are _you_ doing so?" I demanded in return. She stepped closer and paused beside my head as if it were a perfectly simple act.

"I see no reason you should struggle, child. Is not the mantle a part of you now? Does not Winter's hold spread throughout your heart and and blood to your very depths? You should no more struggle to stand as I." She told me in a surprisingly straight-forward manner. I suppose being bound to her Queen, now _our_s, she felt less obligated to obfuscate her wording and rope me any deeper into her grip.

Which, come to think of it, is concerning.

Sidhe don't just give up like that.

I concentrated on what she had said and lowered one hand to the floor before carefully letting my weight down on it... and my hand stayed firmly in place as I _felt_ the magic suffusing my flesh react with that inherent in the floor.

Lea was right. There _was_ no reason to struggle on familiar territory. I slowly clambered to my feet and found traction without a problem.

* * *

><p><strong>And that's about it. I do have another one-off piece that isn't ever likely to get going, but I'll save that for down the road. Cleaning out my archives pretty well lately, actually. Never really took this piece any further than where it ends here.<strong>


	24. 24: A duel gone wrong

Blood pounded heavily in his ears as he slammed his body flat against the bathroom door in time to miss Malfoy's Severing Curse by inches, though the unfortunate portrait in the hall could not and was rent in half cleanly, depicting not merely the power but the practice the other boy had put into it.

The follow up sank into his Protego Charm and spared Harry a moment to collect his thoughts on a counter, winching as Myrtle shouted shrilly for them to stop. 'Bugger if I'm going to be able to concentrate long enough with her wailing in my ears!' he thought furiously as the next curse shattered his spell in a show of brilliant blue motes and flung him out of the bathroom entirely.

He hit the floor with a grunt and skidded ten feet on his side, but his fingers hadn't let go of his wand, and even as he tried to get his breath back into his suddenly aching lungs, he swept it back in the direction of Malfoy and wheezed out "Langlock!"

Both Myrtle's racket and Malfoy's next spell, a partially finished "Cruc-" were cut short. Having no such restriction save the near inability to breath, Harry sent an atypical disarming spell and watched in frustration as it was silently deflected back at him, albeit with a look of wearied panic on the blonds face, struggling to work out a counter in his mind.

For a brief eternity they were left like that before Malfoy's eyebrows met together in success and he finished his interrupted curse, "Crucio!" and the jet of pale light crashed against the floor where Harry had been half a second before, only just rolling aside in time.

Unfortunately for him Malfoy wasn't playing around anymore. He didn't waste time waiting to see if his first attempt would hit, and he intoned almost immediately on the heels of the first, with far more malice now infusing his tone, "CRUCIO!"

Harry's flesh erupted in molten flame, his nerves screaming in tandem as the piercing coil of a thousand, nearly even tens of thousands of fishhooks dug in and pulled him in every direction at once, trying to shred his skin down through each layer to the very bone.

He tasted the familiar coppery-tones of blood in his mouth and felt the pain redouble, arching obscenely as his teeth began to tug loose, his voice constricted beneath the surge of mind-rending agony.

The snap and crackle of his bones barely registered on the scale by that point, and the blood spewing out of his oldest scar down into his eyes wasn't even a footnote in the misery that had become his total existence.

His wand hand stirred as his body bent in upon itself and the last curse he had been intending to deliver all along fled past his mangled lips, forcing a surge of magic down his arm and into the holly and phoenix feather construct about to snap in half.

It felt like days, perhaps even weeks later, that he could breath and feel again, that he could think through the distant haze left in the wake of the Unforgivable releasing its dire hold about him.

His head lulled to one side and took in the bisected form of Malfoy laying face down on the floor in a steadily-increasing pool of his own blood, twisting at the waist in a way that should have been impossible on a properly connected torso- the toes pointing up at the ceiling as the nose faced down.

Despite the after courses of intense ache running over his muscles Harry pushed up to his knees, and a moment later threw up across the floor as his stomach rolled and heaved tightly.

He brought up a shaking hand and slowly wiped his mouth off on a sleeve of his robe after a minute more of dry heaving. A sort of numbness had wrapped around his mind after the curse had let up, and he knew that he should be feeling something as he stared down at Malfoy's likely corpse, but a sudden hand had appeared in his field of vision and thrown him aside roughly and without a care.

He crashed to the floor again and watched through the daze as Snape slashed his wand back and forth like a muggle conductor, the wood shaft nearly a blur as words spilled out of the Defense instructors lips in rapid course.

A moment later and a flash of silver soared down the hall, speaking clearly and sharply. "Disapparate immediately. Wards disabled." It was unmistakably Dumbledore's Patronus, and Snape laid a hand on Malfoy's still form and vanished on the spot with a thunderous crack barely a moment later. 

* * *

><p>An hour later and Harry was in the Hospital Wing, with a very grim Ron beside him. He had tried faintly to explain. He was sure Snape could save him, that Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, would be able to lend tears as it had for he himself four years ago.<p>

And then Hermione rushed in and came to a dead stop next to the bed, her face flushed from running. "He's... he's recovering, right? Fawkes- Snape...?" he asked haltingly, but she just shook her head.

"You don't understand, Harry - you won the duel, but he died. We got an owl from St. Mungo's. He's dead, Harry."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: An ancient prompt featuring the line "You don't understand, Harry - you won the duel, but he died. We got an owl from St. Mungo's. He's dead, Harry." I wonder how it compares to my writing these days? Hm.**


	25. 25: Sword in the Stone?

"Sword in the stone, huh?" Harry asked rhetorically. "So tell me, all I have to do is yank this thing free and you'll call me King?" He asked the group of squires and knights and would-be-kings standing, sitting, kneeling, or otherwise taking a rest before the trial of the Kingmaker.

A haughty fellow scowled at him, and Harry was reminded quite pleasantly of Lucius Malfoy. He happened to owe the bastard a spell or two in the gut for the last time they met, but he was willing to let it be for the moment, at least until he could confirm the common ancestry of the man.

"As if you could pull it free, squib," the man insulted him quite readily. The outfit Harry wore was not one that should have fit in with the timeline, and he did not care very much, either. He stepped up and planted a foot toward either side of the stone, set his shoulders, and leaned in. Then with one hand wrapped around the hilt, he whispered Caliburn's true name and the name of the earth magic that bound it to the rock, and felt it ease into his hand on the withdrawal.

"Figures. After all, if _I'm_ here, than that means _a_ Harry Potter would have arrived here eventually. The story line requires it, after all."

"H... how? How?" the possibly-related-to-the-Malfoy's knight demanded as Harry stepped back from the now-useless stone, Caliburn cradled in one arm like a newborn babe.

"Destiny, fate, born to take it up, you name it and it probably applies," Harry answered him without a care. "Regardless, that should have been 'H... how, how, _your highness_'. Do try to keep your manners in mind or I'll have to cut off your head for the insult."

The knight's teeth ground together as it finally occurred to the rest of those present that their King had been chosen. More of the same questions flooded him from the others present, save one; the oldest man that had been sitting down. His blue gaze flicked over Harry several times in silence, as if appraising his worth.

Harry let his aura flood the surroundings and knock out the Muggles and Squibs present. Which left only a wizard standing opposite him.

"Lets cut the crap and get straight into the heart of the matter, shall we?" Harry asked the possibly-older man.

"I remember you, King Potter." He answered.

Harry smiled. "I'd expect so from the wizard that developed and introduced mortal-based backwards-through-time magical theory. I happen to know the old girl that taught the basis to you, as a matter of fact." He responded.

Merlin didn't seem surprised. "I remember you saying that." He said.

Harry lowered Caliburn. "Then do you remember how long I hung around this world, or shall I just jump onward with a slightly-handy sword to go cut down my next Voldemort?"

"That I can not tell you, King Potter," Merlin answered him reluctantly. "You were ever hidden from prying eyes and locked away within your tower after this while I lived - a great hundred years, and more," Merlin explained, "such is the way of what will come to be, for I am never around you if ever you would emerge."

Harry shrugged. "Good. Next time I show up, make sure to help give me a sword," he paused and reached into his robes, into the armory stored within one pocket, and stowed Caliburn into an already-forming-slot to hold the legendary weapon.

Next to it he drew out one of the lesser Godric Gryffindor blades acquired in his travels and pressed it into Merlin's aged hands. "You'll know the right time." And with those words spoken, the air began to rumble ominously.

"Sounds like the me you were actually looking for is on his way here from the far flung future. Be a good sport and shove that back into the stone for me, yeah?" Harry asked him as an altogether far more concerning noise began to rumble and groan, dwarfing the sound of time travel in its wake.

Merlin kept his balance and stepped away, but a look of distant puzzlement filled his eyes, as if one saw the future with this Harry, and one saw another with the new Harry coming.

"Your future-sight is strong, Merlin, but it doesn't account for inter-dimensional travelers." Smiling for the first time in a long time, he felt his blood begin to boil and stir the longer he resisted the draw of the jump, and at last with an echoing peal of thunder the likes of which would never again be replicated in this world, reality buckled and folded before Harry just as the Harry that was meant to arrive here did just that some distance further.

Merlin clutched his head at the mental backlash and paradox of two of the same man appearing before him occurred, and the clash of futures and realities within those futures raged.

A split second after the intended-Harry arrived and the Harry that had landed here solely to claim Caliburn on his journey vanished into the nexus and void, and so was thrown forward to his next world and next foe, or tool of assistance.

Merlin staggered like a drunkard over to the stone and stabbed Godric Gryffindor's sword in to the hilt with a sort of paralyzed determination, a numbness of mind that pushed him to operate on instinct alone. A few seconds later he sank to his knees, bowed his forehead to one, and drifted to slumber in his exhaustion.

It was as such that the Harry that was meant to arrive there would stumble through to the scene some time later and be surprised by the sight that awaited him.

That would do nothing to prevent him from drawing the legendary blade, or such that he mistook it for, despite recognizing it for Gryffindor's sword and the mystery surrounding the mix up of the names. He would likewise assume Gryffindor's sword was actually named Excalibur originally, despite all reason not to, and so utilize the basilisk infused metal and his tutelage under Merlin and the sages of that time to kill his own Voldemort after returning to the future, all without ever learning the truth.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Another few days of idle amusement a year or two ago. Intended as a parody of the usual 'Harry goes back in time and meets Merlin' fics.  
><strong>


	26. 26: James Potter-centric AU in the 80s

**James Potter and the Quidditch incident.  
><strong>

_In hindsight_, he thought rather hazily, blinking muddled brown eyes up at the Deputy Headmistress, _perhaps the Quidditch celebrations _did_ go a bit too far._

* * *

><p>As the cheering from the mostly-empty stands finally subsided, James Potter swooped down toward the grass below with the other members of the Gryffindor team, eyes still alight with satisfaction at the trouncing they had delivered. He did a full pirouette a few feet away from disaster, spinning up at the last possible moment to the applause of a few of the birds ahead and causing most of the other players to dive out of his way or jump back into the sky with indulgent smiles - Sirius whistling appreciatively at his agility, waving his beaters bat around like a bludger was still loose. "C'mon and try that one again, Potter! I'll knock some sense back into you!" The exuberance of a hard-fought victory always riled those two up particularly.<p>

The only one staying quiet was Frank Longbottom, hovering up by the goal rings on the opposite side of the field from the rest of his team. A frown displaced the satisfaction he should have worn as he looked out over the dusk-laden grounds.

The Slytherin opposition and their catcalling lackeys had departed the field ten minutes ago, but his keen eye noticed more than a few disgruntled snakes lurking down by the changing rooms and dotting the rest of the landscape up to the front doors of the castle.

There had to be close to thirty odd sixth- and seventh year students bedecked in silver and green scattered below.

_Smart buggers, I'll give them that_, the Seeker thought, _scattered just far enough that a Professor wouldn't call it lingering or waiting around._ With that thought he tucked into his broom and performed a quick fly-around to share the news, calling James up short of his attention-seeking antics - for the moment.

Toes hovering inches over the green as Frank told them what he had seen, they gradually ascended to see for themselves.

"I dunno, boys," he said once they had all gathered together near the goal rings. "We can take them in the air any day of the week, so they turn to numbers on the grounds to even things up a bit too much for my liking. I'd just as soon get back to Alice and celebrate our victory in one piece rather than wake up in the Hospital Wing afterwards."

James shrugged, scanning for a particular greasy haired bat.

"I suppose we _could_ go down there and duel the ruddy hell out of them," he agreed. "Or..." trailing off as Madam Hooch whistled shrilly in irritation at their extended loitering, James smiled one of those stupid lopsided smiles he always wore whenever a plan was hatching. "We could kill some time with a celebratory scrimmage match to honor our victory - a quick word with Rolanda should cement the matter, she's soft on me of late. Anyone still waiting around down there after half an hour is fair game for a flyby - down a snake, down a round, Black has a couple of bottles of firewhiskey hidden away in the Shrieking Shack we can pick up when we're done!"

Frank tried to smother his grin, giving his fellow sixth-year a disapproving stare that fell flat on its face and became a mirthful cackle of approval almost immediately.

One face or another stood out in that disjointed crowd that the whole team had at least a single grievance with, and the rest chipped in their own agreement to the plan - Sirius more enthusiastically than the rest.

* * *

><p>Swallowing the contents of his seventh round, James laughed uproariously at Frank's expression, sliding back against his locker in the changing rooms. The clock hanging up on one wall chimed nine times, warning him, Frank, and Sirius, the last of the team still hanging around now that they had had their fill of hunting, that the hour was essentially too late to reach the dormitory.<p>

The noise seemed to sober up Frank. He blinked blearily and rubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand, trying to knuckle the blur from his vision. "Blimey. I think... I think I've kept Alice waiting long enough, mates. I'll have to risk flying up to the Tower and slipping through a window at this rate." His grimace said enough - if the doors were locked, as they probably were, then the three of them were going to have their work cut out for them getting back in.

Sirius shrugged and swallowed around round cheerfully. "Or you could try that door beneath the stands leading up to the third floor." He patted a pocket on his robes, having already shirked the heavy beaters gear and jersey, and dug out an old parchment, whipping his wand out the next moment and uttering an incantation as he tapped it to the center of the sheet. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Lines of ink blurred up from the point of contact and spread, covering a bit of boundary here and there just outside of the castle itself. He and James shared a surprisingly measured look, and at the other Marauder's slight nod, Sirius pressed the map into Frank's hands.

"Be a sport and take good care of this until the morning. We'll meet you up there shortly."

Frank stared at the treasure in his hands, then up to his friends, and back again. "How in the... when did... _blimey_, old Slughorn's on his way out of the Great Hall now!"

His fellow teammates stood up. James dug into the locker at his back and frowned - apparently the snakes had raided it on their way out earlier that evening. Everything was gone... at least insofar as the regulation-sized sections of the locker counted. He reached up and shoved a hand against the seemingly-solid roof and pushed through the fake panel, sliding it to one side and feeling the familiar silken cloth hidden away. He dug out his Invisibility Cloak and swept it down with a pleased flourish.

"On our way, gentlemen," he snagged the half-empty bottle and took another quick swig straight off the end. "Frank, you take the map and head through the stands. Sirius, the Whomping Willow is probably a good bet for this." He handed the bottle to his best-mate and shrugged the Cloak around his shoulders, holding it open enough for the others. "We'll cut off and make for the castle separately once away from the, ah, evidence."

* * *

><p>He should have expected the mud, actually. And probably the other careful traps and curses scattered around after leaving the Slytherins alone on the grounds for so long. His jersey had finally finished shredding to dust just after emerging from some shrubbery located near the front doors, but thank Merlin his Cloak was otherwise intact.<p>

The only thing he still had on was his codpiece - even his shoes had been eaten alive on the way, and that kind of talent just reeked of Snape's hand. The foul git couldn't have expected him to have his family's Invisibility Cloak tucked away.

The Professor was still busy patrolling the grounds. Sooner or later he was bound to stumble over a stunned - _pity Frank's conscience intervened there_ - and Disillusioned victim. _A few of the ones closer to the Forest might have been snacked on already, though_.

He hadn't really expected to unlock the doors on the first try. After the next four failed him, however, James stood up a bit straighter and stared it down - this was just going to be another matter of waving his wand around long enough to break through the charms locking it down. Slughorn was professional enough not to rely on anything an _Alohamora_ could fix.

* * *

><p>At last James finished the issue off and hastened inside. He was well on his way up the Third Floor corridor when the night crumbled, as it were - all that mud tracked inside on the balls of his feet and his toes left a rather condemning trail.<p>

"_Stupefy!_" the red jet hit him square between the shoulders before he had even processed the incantation. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find himself staring up into the stern expression of his Head of House.

"James Potter," she uttered flatly. His Cloak was laying underneath him and bunched up around his head, revealing his identity as much as his state of undress. "I suppose it is _you_ we have to blame for poor Horace's current state of affairs - the missing students. And just who do you think you are, walking around the castle in nothing but a codpiece of all things?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Another DLP challenge. The line was "Just who do you think you are, walking around the castle in nothing but a codpiece." Took me a little over an hour for the initial premise, and most of another today rewriting sections and expanding this by about four hundred words to make it work better. A bit wonky toward the end, I suppose.  
><strong>


	27. 27: Naruto-centric trio of challenges

**Challenge-response time, guys! Naruto-verse centric for all three, all three tied together in the same universe post-Fourth Shinobi World War, but differing tense/tone, I suppose. Hope that baits your attention enough to read! I consider the first one the worst of the trio, but it is also the shortest at about 600 words.**

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><p>Line: "Woah, Sakura! That doesn't go there!"<br>Time limit: 30 minutes

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><p>Reclined on the last hospital bed in Konoha, most of Naruto Uzumaki's body is one giant lump of <em>pain<em>.

The confrontation with Obito has been over for months now, but without Kurama's presence in the middle of his gut, his famed overnight-healing has failed him for the first time in living memory, leaving him to the mercy of everyday recovery like the rest of the shinobi forces.

He's lucky to still be alive, and he knows it.

The other Jinchuriki to have their tailed beast ripped out _aren't_, and Gaara doesn't count; he still technically died and was resurrected afterward, which excuses him from the list. The life-filled chakra inherited from his mother's defunct clan is most of the reason why Naruto has succeeded where ninety-nine point five percent of the others haven't.

The rest of the reason, however, is that the best medic-nin to come out of that damn war is tending to him personally, day and night, and helping to replenish his strength every time it starts to dip down to regular Jounin levels again.

The problem is that she has a tendency to shove her healing chakra in places where it _really doesn't belong_. Oh, sure, his body might seem to indicate an infusion _there_ is necessary, but he'd just as soon leave it to chance and endure the pain rather than suffer the humiliation.

A sigh of dread escapes his battered lips as soft footfalls click across the tiles, and moments later the drape around his isolated bed is drawn back to reveal Sakura in all her weary glory.

She smiles a brittle smile and steps into the cramped space, closing the curtain with a flick of the wrist. It slams against the wall and dents it even more than the last time, adding another two inches to the spiderweb of cracks spreading around the point of contact.

He gulps. "I, ah, I'm doing fine, Sakura," he tries to plead with her as the familiar glow of green healing chakra saturates her fingertips.

She ignores the comment the same as she has every time this week. "Sit up and roll over," she orders. For just a moment he considers trying to struggle, to refuse. "Now."

A dull whimper slips out this time as he complies. It's getting easier for him to move around, to shift his limbs here and there, and rolling over is not a problem. But he almost wishes it was. Compared to what is coming, his regular aches and woes are perfectly acceptable.

Sakura closes the distance and presses her hands against his back, starting at the tense shoulders and gradually working her way down. Foreign chakra invades his system and begins worming through to the most immediate areas of concern.

He groans around clenched teeth as torn muscles slowly weave their fibers back together, become knotted. Knots and cramps are left intact as the chakra continues toward worse sections, leaving searing agony in the wake.

By the time her hands move over his hip and press into his stomach, Naruto is almost ready to give up. Then he feels the fingertips dancing over the ravaged seal that had held Kurama for sixteen years, digging into the skin and forcing chakra to flow where it shouldn't ever go again, storing it up in the half-shattered cage.

His eyes flash open as they always do. Even all of the cramps before pale in comparison to that sensation. She's only trying to help him cope with the vacancy inside, but it's _wrong_, a violation that he can't make peace with despite knowing the fox is gone every time he wakes up.

He groans. "Woah, Sakura!" His teeth grit together as he caches her hands and pushes them away with all the strength he can manage. "That doesn't go there!"

* * *

><p>Challenge: "And will someone tell my just why, exactly, a giraffe is in my office?!"<p>

* * *

><p>The previous several days had been quite tiring for the recently instated Sixth Hokage - a surprise visit from the Fire Daimyo, his wife, and their thirty-man entourage appearing at the gates last Tuesday, his messenger bird having been caught and eaten somewhere along the border bearing the brunt of the blame for their lack of preparations in accommodating the guests; putting his foot down yet <em>again<em> in response to Orochimaru's underground scheming via the not-so-Hidden Root the following afternoon, and thus hustling said Daimyo and his lot away before they could be unduly influenced by that Saturday; and just yesterday learning that the delegation out of Oto bearing the peace treaty between their distant villages had just up and vanished en-route, which Sasuke would naturally accuse them or the Council of interfering with in an attempt to spite the budding Uchiha clan's revival.

A less stubborn man might have assumed that Kami had it out for him. Naruto Uzumaki simply vowed to continue and, perhaps, take it out on the landscape - having a neutered chakra-demon inside his gut for sixteen years had kind of swayed his way of thinking, even now that it was finally gone.

"I swear, if I hear _one_ more piece of disgruntling news in the coming hour, I'm going to find the next nearest mountain-range outside of the _Monument _itself and I'm carving out my frustrations on its barren hide," he uttered under his breath as he put on his hat and slid into the slightly unorthodox robes bearing his father's sigil over the back. It had been recovered early on from the rubble of the Fourth Shinobi World War, and he wore it with a certain amount of pride now that he was up and running again on his own strengths. The usual black-banded forehead protector from his genin days was also tied into place just beneath the rim of the hat, so that anyone he would have to deal with would see it whether they approved or not - Homura and Kohaku coming to mind. Unlike most of his predecessors to the role, Naruto Uzumaki had never passed his Chunin exam, thus being the only shinobi since the first generation of Kages' and the creation of the modern ranking system to become elevated into the position by the merits of his previous work.

As was becoming a regular occurrence since the Daimyo's arrival, the coming of dawn had been all too soon - _another _two in the morning nap granting him nothing but scarce rest - and the heavy bags underneath his eyes spoke testament to the fact that he was exhausted and a smidgeon cranky.

He took his time about leaving the hospital room where he had more-or-less taken a permanent residence these days, Sakura's regular healing/chakra-supplement sessions now stretched out to just once-a-month instead of twice a day, and he tipped his head in wary respect to the healer as they passed in the hall a few minutes later.

She responded with a weary wave of the hand and continued hurriedly toward her next patient's room, leaving the Hokage to brighten up a bit at the thought that some other poor victim was about to suffer her ministrations instead of him, and then he was out of the front doors and marching through the middle of the village he had grown up despising for the most part.

Only a handful of the civilians were even awake so early, but they greeted him by title if not by name - "Good day, Hokage-sama!" and "Good to see you, Uzumaki-sama!" - which never failed to bring a broader smile and eventually full out grin to his lips whenever he heard it, as it did today. He knew most of them by their family names if not their given ones and he answered in kind.

It was a bit less satisfying with the shinobi and kunoichi he passed on the way to the Hokage Tower, as they tended to repeat Sakura's performance by offering a nod or bow in passing and then moving back to what they had been in the middle of doing. They knew if he needed to actually say something, he'd go ahead and stop them along the way, and it just wasn't in their nature to hang around and chat amicably except for where the other Konoha Eleven were concerned.

He stopped at his favorite rebuilt-location in the entire village in the wake of Pain's assault for a quick breakfast. Ramen Ichiraku was almost always open by dawn, and Naruto bought only four bowls-to-go with a quick word to the friendly man and his daughter.

He slurped through the meal idly over the next ten minutes, balancing the spare bowls carefully and taking to the rooftops to stretch his chakra.

Rather than walk through the doors to the Tower when he got there just after sunrise, Naruto continued the basic exercise and climbed the outside wall, bringing up the last bowl just before he stepped through the window. He exhaled happily with his eyes closed as he lowered the porcelain toward the stack in the corner of his left arm.

"Aah, I needed that," he sighed and opened his eyes.

The sight that greeted him stole the joy from his face.

Curled up around the built-from-scratch desk by Yamato, licking at the many - and quite thoroughly emptied - spare cups of store-bought ramen stacked up along either side of it that should have been his mid-morning snack and afternoon lunch respectively, rested a yellow and brown-spotted beast that he was only passingly familiar with.

It was a sight that brought back all of the recent irritations and swept Naruto's good mood right out the window he was still perched on.

He almost dropped Teuchi's porcelain bowls as he flexed his jaws and stepped over the threshold in one slow bound. They were deposited instead into one of the few available chairs, and his hands clapped together into the oldest technique he had ever mastered; the Shadow Clone jutsu.

Rather than half a dozen doppelgangers materializing from the ether, however, only two joined him, and they shared his furious expression.

"It couldn't have been the paperwork it ate, oh, no," they declared together in an equally agitated tone. The first clone knew what it was supposed to do, and it shot out the window to buy another fifty cups of replacement ramen. The second clone likewise departed, this time to warn those that needed it that the Hokage was going on a brief trip outside of Konoha's limits to relieve his recent stresses.

And Naruto himself whirled around and stormed into the rest of the Tower, looking around at the receptionist snoring quietly on her desk, the handful of newly arrived Chunin sorting the mission scrolls for the day, and one Hatake Kakashi lurking in the corner picking at a pair of A-rank missions, and let his fury be known. "I already know who to blame for this," he began loudly, "but will someone tell me just why, exactly, a giraffe is in my office?!"

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><p>Challenge: "Some have said there is no subtlety to mass kage bunshin and rasengan. You know what? They're dead."<p>

* * *

><p>The immediate reaction he received was a startled oath from the receptionist before she ducked back and hid behind her reports, and a handful of jumpy Chunin, each managing to latch onto the ceiling with chakra and hang there well out of his way with widened eyes.<p>

Naruto Uzumaki was no drunken Fifth, smacking around her subordinates when they got too lippy, and certainly not susceptible to the rage felt by the Second and his vendetta against certain clans, _but by Kami_, when he went off it was best to make yourself scarce in his immediate vicinity. The aftermath of the Fourth Shinobi World War was proof enough of _that_ lesson, and most of the villagers knew it.

The only one _not_ surprised by the outburst was, of course, the culprit of the crime - Hatake Kakashi. The oldest Sharingan user still alive let out a low exhalation and finally shoved the spare A-ranked scroll back in its slot, grasping the other quite firmly between the fingers of his left hand, and turned to greet his Hokage after the regularly-expected delay of several seconds.

"I thought you liked animals, Hokage-dono," Kakashi answered simply. He smiled that stupid smile that made it look like his eye was upturned as much as his mouth, a trick of the facial features that Naruto _still _ couldn't puzzle out even after all of the years since first seeing it, and he let out a quiet growl of warning. It was met with a shrug before Kakashi elaborated his point.

"Kamui's been acting up ever since Obito died, actually. It dragged in and spat out that giraffe while I was scouting through Grass country yesterday evening and deposited it, well, _here_," he shrugged again a bit helplessly. "I suppose it could have been worse - I _was_ staring down an elephant just a few moments beforehand..." he trailed off into a mindful silence, clearly reviewing the scene in his mind's eye.

Naruto stared at him incredulously. In the back of his head he knew that Kakashi was likely kidding him, and that if not then the Sharingan faltering was a serious issue that would need to be reviewed in short order.

'In short order' meant at least three days away in his current mood.

"So get rid of it!" the Hokage hissed back at him.

Kakashi exhaled and raised his hands apologetically. "Well, I'd like to, Hokage-dono, but who knows where it might land if I did succeed in removing it from your office? If this incident isn't mere coincidence, some higher power might very well be directing it into the offices of the nations' 'kages. Perhaps into the Kazekage's office next time, or the Tsuchikage's. Heaven forbid," he paled a little and said melodramatically, "that it land in the _Raikage's_ office!"

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Naruto did a quiet count to ten underneath his breath as Iruka-sensei had told him to do as a boy, having remembered or learned many such little means to bring him a bit of calm again since claiming his current position in the village.

It did not help.

He lowered his hand and looked straight into his old mentor's lone visible eye. "Get it out of my office by the time I'm back, Kakashi, or your next assignment for the foreseeable future is a trip to Sound and finding a means of appeasing Sasuke's thirst for vengeance before it comes after the Council's throats!"

While Kakashi stared back in feigned concern for his well-being, Naruto snatched the A-ranked scroll from his left hand and shoved it into a pocket on his father's robe, then hastened to claim the next half-dozen B- and C- as well; he would _not_ be giving the Jounin the chance to wander off on a mission while he himself was venting his woes on the backside of an overgrown molehill.

Kakashi sighed in good-graced defeat and bowed to his Hokage's will, and only once Naruto had shot out the doorway like an Akamichi chasing after a run-away wheel of cheese did he confess, softly so that the others would not hear, "Perhaps Sakura has the right idea about his stress relief after all."

Several minutes later and a white and faintly-yellow blur was leaping through the underbrush clogging up the way to his intended location. It was joined by a second and, most of the way there later, third such identical blur. At last the trees along the way thinned out to some degree and the trio of Naruto's emerged into cloudy sunlight.

Only a handful of miles splintered their imminent destination from that of Konoha proper, but that was good - just far enough away not to scare the civilian villagers, and yet also near enough to spook any shinobi and kunoichi that would probably hear as much as see the damage taking place.

Any of them that took notice were welcome to come and get an up-close view of exactly what it was that the Sixth Hokage could still do without a Bijuu in his belly.

"You two have the general idea?" Naruto asked his first clones. It had come to him along the way, the final piece in mind, but the overall concept had been building up ever since that first incident a week ago.

"Yeah. Lets do this," they nodded energetically, cracking knuckles as well as wide smiles. This was going to be _fun_, it was going to be _relaxing_, and it was going to be entertaining as hell when they were done.

Naruto smiled vengefully along with them as he formed the handseals of the kage bunshin again. Close to ten more identical clones burst into being around the others.

For close to an hour, the noise of regular explosions echoed back along the wind until reaching the edges of the village. Some of the closer clan districts were the first to clue in on something being amiss, among them the Hyuuga's. They were also among the first to give a collective sigh of embarrassment for their Hokage's antics, warning off their neighboring clans in an attempt to preserve any dignity that he might have left, and finally the first to indulge his crude humor and go to find out what in the hell had happened to convince him to do this practically in Konoha's backyard.

Hinata lead the charge, so to speak. She had avoided Naruto in the wake of his recovery after the war, in part out of respect for his role, and this would be the first time that she had the courage to try and speak to him directly since taking his hand before facing down Obito and Madara Uchiha atop the Juubi's head.

Of course a few other Jounin joined in before they were past the gates. It was a relatively small party, with a handful of Jounin-sensei's and two other members of the Konoha Eleven, including Kiba and Shino.

The lot of them emerged to the last few heavy booms, as earth was carved and shaped violently and smoke erupted to blur the air. Only a few panting Naruto's remained out of the original thirteen to begin working on the process, the rest either taken out by flying shrapnel, chakra exhaustion, or plain fatigue on the maker's part.

The fatigue etched into their Hokage's face was clear as he leaned back and stretched slowly, his hat and robe dirtied by the work. He slouched in his posture when he relented from the abominable strain to most of his muscle groups, only then turning to see he had a party to welcome.

"Naruto-sama, what exactly are you thinking?" Hinata asked quietly. The veins around her milky-white eyes stared through the dust at the demolished mountain.

He grinned widely, flicking his head in mutual respect to the instructors and old team-rivals trying to get the same glimpse that the Hyuuga heiress had.

"Some have said there is no subtlety to mass kage bunshin and rasengan," he began instead of directly answering her question. He gestured around himself and his remaining clones summoned the strength to create a heavy gust to clear the air before they dissipated. Moments later quiet chuckles and disbelieving stares met his efforts. "You know what? They're dead."

The mountain had been carved, cut, and blown up until it was smoothed out into a replica of Kurama. Only half his natural scale, of course, but the fur was notched and jagged looking, the fangs honed to an edge, and each of the nine tails seemed poised to snap out and crush a foe beneath their weight. The eyes glinted with the polish applied.

Anyone that thought to harass Konoha again from this direction in the future to come would see his work and begin the rumor mill that maybe, _just maybe_, the old Tailed Beasts weren't quite as eradicated as they had seemed.

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><p><strong>AN: And that is, at the moment, that. I intend to keep writing the same universe as best as the challenges I'm issued are given**, **and just maybe I'll expand it into a proper story someday.**


	28. 28: Quick-runes, anyone?

**Decrepit Ruins**, **Albania**

_September the First_, _1999_.

Dashing around a corner at just shy of a full tilt and slapping one hand up against the nearest wall to keep himself upright, Harry Potter felt his weary features tighten into a grimace at the confined alleyway he now found himself essentially trapped within.

Ahead of him, the brick-and-mortar walls stretched out for a good twenty meters or more, and with barely enough room to brush his shoulders against them, he felt about as vulnerable as a sitting duck. There was no time for him to double-back and seek out an alternative route, however, even if he had been confident enough that he could actually find one not filled with Death Eaters by now.

As if his own footsteps weren't echoing loudly enough to indicate his position, their own more-harried pace gave them away the same, and it would only be a matter of fleeting seconds before they were at the same opening behind him.

_Had to be expected_, he thought starkly. _Couldn't have counted on luck to hold out forever._

The last vestiges of _Felix Felicis_ seemed to have about burned out of his system within the last couple of minutes. For every twist and turn about the ramshackle, long-abandoned Albanian wizarding village he was in, he had barely sensed something about _this way_ or _that way_ at all, but the luck potion had at least held long enough for him to avoid walking straight into Voldemort's latest trap almost twenty minutes before.

Ever since that point, he had been running - outnumbered close upon forty-to-one, he knew when to pitch a fight and when to accept the mission as utterly pear-shaped.

His boots pounded on the cold cobblestone path furiously as he measured the distance to come and came to an unpleasant conclusion; _no chance at all_. Disapparition was still impossible as he had unhappily recognized the moment he set foot here, and portkey's disintegrated in the process of coming together.

In short, he was buggered.

Sure enough, as he flicked his head over one shoulder for a moment, the first white mask-clad figure rushed into the alleyway and came to a dead halt at the easy pickings made of the situation.

With a resigned sigh, Harry slowed down and turned around - he refused to die with his back turned to a single one of the pure-blooded bastards. His robes scraped at the walls with a faint crinkle of noise, and his left hand was nicked by an edge of particularly sharp rock, but his concentration was focused on the end of the alleyway.

Three more of the Death Eaters had joined the first by the time he was facing the lot of them, and he could almost _feel_ the leering grins they wore at having cornered him at last. Worse, they had their wands trained steadily on his body in one position or another, rather than hanging at their sides lazily as the previous batch had.

_A right shame, that_.

"Any last words for your grave-marker, Potter?" the lead Death Eater called down the passageway.

_It's not over yet, for one,_ he responded silently.

Keeping his wand safely stowed away within the holster strapped to his primary wrist, and keeping that arm resting at ease by his side - the better to hide what slight motions his fingers were making - Harry answered aloud a moment later, "Yeah."

As expected, the first salvo of spells came streaking from all four wands almost as soon as the last syllable was off of his tongue. Red, yellow, and two different brilliant blues devoured the distance with only a slight delay in their jockeying for the lead position owing to the difficulties of silent casting, but he had no intention to try and block them outright even if he had known what kind of shield to conjure up.

Instead, he finished hastily shoving his magic into the _quick-runes_ slapped at the edge of the alleyway and at his side, having paid the activation charge with a drop of blood, and he hastily stumbled back one no less than a full pace from where he had begun.

In half a beat, as the spells covered almost three-quarters of the distance to strike his body, the section of wall in between the two _quick-runes_ was abruptly uplifted and slammed into the opposing wall across from it as if magnetically attracted.

Fast, dirty, and long-forgotten outside of the darker aspects of Europe, Harry was more than a little relieved to have found the more modern-take on the otherwise-ancient magic during his studies into this place.

Then the energy cost registered, and he felt that relief perform a neat pirouette and fall into intense regret - and agony. It was gut-wrenching; his lungs seemed to have shriveled up, taking with them every available muscle from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet. His breath came more laboriously than all of the running he had done earlier combined - more so than any two chases in recent memory piled together, rapid and short intakes only to be exhaled almost as soon, leaving him blessedly light-headed enough that it was all diminished just a small fraction.

Being used for boxing practice by Hagrid couldn't have hit his body any harder than the toll to drag that much weight forward almost-instantaneously.

Wave-after-wave of misery lanced through him, a liquid _Cruciatus Curse_ cycling throughout his veins, and he collapsed to his knees and hunched over, his forehead smashing up against the banished wall; it scratched at his curse scar in another welcome distraction from the other ungodly amounts of pain, an anchor point to rally his mental defenses around.

After several agonized seconds flowed into ten, to thirty, and to a minute of laying there with his face pressed up against the cold stone, mindlessly chewing on his own tongue, he finally realized why _quick-runes_ had remained in the bottom of history's footnotes for close-on two centuries.

_Up,_ he finally managed to non-verbalize, dripping blood past his teeth. Slowly and with great reluctance, he dragged one arm along the cobblestone until it rested against the wall, almost pressed up against his chest, and he pushed up and out enough to dredge a knee upright.

The firestorm that had replaced his muscles resented these actions.

A mouthful of blood slid past his lips and spread into a splatter on contact with the stone, but he squeezed his throbbing eyes shut tighter and forced his other limbs to obey.

In his current state he wouldn't be moving very far for very long, and when he could open his eyes up again, they settled onto the moderate gap where the wall used to be.

The darkness around the outside of his eyes remained in place even after opening them, undulating between tunnel vision and just plain nothingness.

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><p><strong>This was the original introduction scene to Upon a Wyverns' Wings after the prologue with the goblins. I doubt it will be used down the road whenever I do get around to updating that story, however, at least in the current format. <strong>


	29. 29: AU 1945 to 1980s: Grindelwald won

**Part 1:** Discoveries.  
>September 22nd, 1984, London, Greater Germany-district #9[Formerly of Britannia]<p>

A pair of soft pops filled the cramped alleyway between 220 Baker Street and 221 Baker Street, little more wide than a child was tall.

Rain poured down in thick rushes of the stuff, so that it splashed with a cacophony of noise atop the cobblestone path and positively soaked each man as they appeared.

Black and gray cloaks respectively were worn tightly about the shoulders and held close to the stomach, and though on most occasions either man would have refused, the weather forced them to accept differing caps; an atypical dock workers woolen choice and a more valuable if worn top hat.

"Severus." The first of the men to appear, and the one with the former across his messy black hair, greeted his opposite and in the same word objected to their standing around like fools.

Severus scoffed in recognition of the underlying message and spared him a cross look beneath the brim of his hat, then began walking tautly toward the end of the alley.

At each step he carefully tracked their progress and silently ticked away the mathematics formula he had been instructed on prior, until coming to an abrupt halt two full strides from the exit.

Behind him the other man came to a similar stop and, as one, they drew out a set of wands and turned to their left.

In-sync they tapped the tips in a pattern against the brickwork and followed through on the pattern of forty-one, so that on the final touch the stonework began to quietly grind and fold in upon itself in an ever-widening hole.

"Severus," the first man repeated again, this time offering his rival the initiative to go forward.

A dirty sneer crossed Severus' face, but he strode in and lit his wand with a silently commanded _Lumos_.

A moment later they were both situated inside of the dim and hidden passage, and with a single touch the way out began to seal itself again.

Dusty cobwebs clung about the low-hung chandelier overhead, and the wooden boards were every bit as old and worn as one might expect given the age and neglect of the building.

The light shining from the end of Severus' wand illuminated a door ahead, and he stepped up to it without preamble, turned the knob and stepped through.

His companion followed with a muttered "_Lumos,_" of his own.

The room they emerged within was far larger than the initial glance would assume.

An entire wall was lined with books and papers, while directly ahead of them lay an old war desk that still held pinned down maps, discarded stratagems, and more besides.

Dust was nearly an inch thick across it all, but there was no mistaking the footsteps worn down into the carpeted floor all around, nor the indention's from a firm hand left into the wooden edges at one point and another.

They both recognized what the place was, and through they reacted to it differently, the thought was impossible not to acknowledge; _This was Dumbledore's war-room._

It was the prime reason they were even there in the first place.

Flicking his wand higher and throwing loose a small ball of light, Severus directed the cool-to-the-touch burning charm up and onto the still-viable candle brackets set upon the walls.

After several of them had been lit both men saw the true extent of the place, and this time words could not be contained.

"_Blazes beneath..._"

The curse went ignored at the sight of the relics Dumbledore had left in his wake, half-completed sciences and various projects, but the most eye-catching specimen lay against the ground.

The eyes within the ancient-looking image stared outward glassily and lifeless, if eyes they could still be referred to as given the dusty and shrunken appearance.

Severus strode forward quickly and knelt to the ground beside it, and his wand swung from corner to corner as if testing some unseen barrier.

"Do you realize what this is, Potter?" He asked quietly after the third such motion.

The other man stepped up more hesitantly, clenching his stomach muscles tightly to hold down his dinner at the ghastly appearance of the painting.

"No. I've never seen something like this before..." he answered lowly.

A condescending scoff met his response as Severus lowered his wand and stood up.

"Unfortunately, _I_ do. _He is still alive._"

Potter gladly lifted his eyes from the painting and stared questioningly, but the Potions expert and Dark Arts successor simply conjured a thick sheet to drape over the object.

"Come. We've much to begin and confirm before the midnight curfew is upon us, and this... _curiosity_, must be left until the very end."

Potter accepted the refusal to explain for the moment, and his thoughts gratefully returned to the original objective; scouting out and recovering what they could to turn this decades-long loss into a victory.

* * *

><p>Stone lattices wrapped over a number of old, craggy figurines, some no more than ankle-width and tall, while others came almost up to naval height.<p>

The best looking of them varied, but were often the smaller of the masonry army, baring fine detailing and moderately accurate facial markings.

The larger were little more than crude bowls, with dense and angular slabs for eyebrows and jagged-lined, jutting teeth.

"The golems," Potter stated, examining the empty holes in the sternum where a magical conduit, some kind of _core_, was meant to be stored at to give the earth-transfiguration's life.

"That is abundantly clear. In all likelihood they were meant to be hewn further, to harness the finest shards in full," Severus responded and paused as his foot crunched down on a dusty, discarded paper.

"Indeed," he confirmed after kneeling to grasp it and unfolding the details.

Potter found another to his side and likewise untangled the discarded concept-sheet.

The shapes and detailing presented on the page took his breath away.

"How... how could these be _failures_?" He wondered aloud. He picked up another abandoned concept and felt his impression only rise further.

Severus shoved his own picked up copy into Potter's hands and reached over the lattice work, where a small stone plaque was half-lifted.

Upon touching it the stasis charm faded away and allowed the awakening mechanism to move into the first stage; the plaque dissolved into liquid sheets and began to race down and over the silent figures beneath, breaking down the lattice work and dragging it in as well.

Lines and runic letters began to carve into the surface wherever the sheets passed, and the rough texture gradually smoothed tautly as if over actual muscle and bone.

Both of the wizards stepped back to watch as a masterpiece was finalized before them.

All that was missing after several minutes of time was the spark of life, and a dull hum radiated from the empty slot where the conduit was required, as if seeking that spark.

The sight of the completed golems was truly impressive and formidable, and it was doubtful that the symbols left behind on the surface would allow much damage to be rendered.

"If he had this available... why did Dumbledore go alone that morning?" Potter asked aloud.

"Surely it wouldn't have been too much to find the crystals depicted in the diagrams," he added.

Severus turned as he answered. "Consider the rarity of the gems and their locations, Potter. The Goblins would not have given them for free, and the amount of energy capable of being stored in them is dependent on the cut."

Potter frowned and followed, reluctant to abandon the small army. "Even so. A man of his caliber could have acquired almost anything, even from those empty-hearted wretches."

* * *

><p>They found other such wonders all throughout the hidden house;<p>

The Sword of Gryffindor was clutched between the fingers of an iron knight, whose surface gleamed with a polished silver and white in their wand light where it was finished, and where it was not the innards were revealed to be made up of thousands of intricately placed gears and levers.

Set across from it were several other such figures from an old board of Wizards Chess, enlarged to life-size and in similar states of incomplete preserve.

Unlike the golems, however, it was clear that these warriors were merely lacking a fully functional shell, as the necks craned and the visors or eyes tracked the two wizards' motion, and an almost seductive allure kept drawing their own gaze in turn.

In a corner of the same room lay a shattered mirror frame and scraps of the same polished surface, and an inscription along the top of the frame read, _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_, which neither man could recognize or understand.

Potter departed before they could lose any further of their limited time, and he was rather glad to escape.

Severus followed far slower.

* * *

><p>Two and a half hours after they entered, and both men had cataloged everything they could about Dumbledore's weaponry for the war.<p>

It was still amazing that thirty-five years after the fact, much of it was still in prime condition.

"Charge the ward-breaker, then, Potter, while I prepare our message," Severus instructed as they entered the foyer/library once again.

The other man reached into his cloak and drew out a money pouch, which he emptied into the other hand. After a long minute he looked up.

"I've lost it," he stated.

Severus turned to stare at him sharply. "I don't understand how or when, but the sickle isn't here. Check your own!"

A quiet curse slid past the taller mans lips a few moments later. "Neither of us are so careless as to misplace our one method _in_ through the wards, Potter." He stated heavily.

Both of them turned toward the door through which they had first entered, and as-one drew their wands together.

"Which means that the _Attentat Zauberstab_ know we're somewhere in this city- if not this cell block. Bloody hell, I thought you said Riddle had researched the wards thoroughly enough!" Potter said roughly.

"And so did I. The only thing we can do is send the message through and wait and see if the signature on the ward-breaker is traced to this location." Severus answered grimly.

Potter grimaced. "Now would be a good time to tell me your education at Hogwarts was well worth it."

"It was; unfortunately, I can not expect to hear the same of your own substandard learning at Beauxbatons." Severus returned.

Both men spared the other a grave look of mutual distaste and separated, with Potter approaching the door as if he expected it to explode inward at a moments notice, and Severus approaching the deadened fireplace to begin writing.

* * *

><p><strong>Part 2: <strong>Where it began.  
>March, 1945, Diagon Alley, Greater Britannia.<p>

The air began to wrinkle and fold upon itself as ward after ward was severed in a narrow locality.

The wrinkle grew until it finally ruptured at the seems and spilled open, revealing the pitch-black tunnel of _Apparation_ and a man garbed in a flowing raiment of purple within it, who dropped down to the cobblestone ground after a moment.

His thick auburn hair reflected the sunlight shining down overhead and left an effect almost akin to a halo hovering about his shoulders, and the glare across his half-moon glasses intensified the cobalt irises behind them.

Diagon Alley lay untouched outside of the large, mechanically-sustained bubble that dwelt in the central road and lead straight across the ocean to Hohenhiem, Germany.

It was obvious that his opponent was as well versed in not only Old Magic, but _Lost Magic_, fields their ancestors' own ancestors' had investigated and invested much energy into, as he himself was.

Getting into the bubble had taken not a considerable degree of his skill, and it would have been impossible besides had he not also studied the field of monodimensional-transportation earlier in the war.

Now ensconced within the parameters of the bubble, he could carry straight forward through the gateway and invade Grindelwald's sanctum, his castle Nurmenburg, less than a mile ahead of him.

A thick gap pierced the surface of said bubble where he had torn through it prior to apparating, and air from Diagon trickled in.

In his hand a flicker of mercury appeared as a shaving curse rushed forward from the treeline further ahead, and his silver shield solidified in time to reflect it back at the caster.

Almost as soon as the first spell had hit his shield a pair of clear blue curses thundered in through the very same gap he himself had created in the wards, and struck his unguarded back between the shoulders.

Even as the lightening curse materialized in full Dumbledore was already flowing into action, and the hand in which his wand dwelt _pulled_, and forced the deadly element to obey his command and rush around in a perfect arc to soar further ahead and detonate.

He barely sighed at the energy expenditure needed to redirect in the milliseconds between contact and materialization, and though the upper layer of his robes were scorched through, the flesh beneath was unharmed.

He spun back to face Diagon Alley and _pushed_ this time, tracing the magic straight through the air and back into the wands of the other wizards, and sent a surge of raw-energy coursing into them.

Two different upper-floors detonated in a display of shrapnel and rent body fragments, ensuring that threat was eradicated.

Grimacing Dumbledore turned to the main threat. "Enough games, Gellert!" He ordered with a _Sonorus_ charm applied.

The echo carried through the hole in space-time and crashed against the walls of Nurmenburg, insuring his once-friend-turned-rival-turned-madman most assuredly obtained the message.

"I quite agree, Albus," said man's quiet voice stated from some several feet behind him.

Dumbledore reacted almost as swiftly as the lightening he had redirected, and Apparated further within the passageway to avoid the death sentence coming toward him.

The bubble expanded a fraction before instantaneously compressing back into the folds of which it had emerged, and it took Dumbledore's left hand up to the elbow before he had vanished out of the reach and reappeared at the very base of the castle.

"Utter fool. The man I once knew would not have stepped into that trap with his ego at the helm," Gellert Grindelwald stated in disappointment as his gateway flickered around the edges and closed, sealing Dumbledore on the other continent...

... and that much farther from interfering in the slaughter about to commence.

Turning in a swish of heavily matted red robes, the man who had laid claim to the Elder Wand swept across the Alley and soon spread outward toward the Ministry of Magic.

In his wake the other two of his loyal _Attentat Zauberstab_, the Assassination Wand's, emerged from the shadows where they had waited.

* * *

><p><strong>Hah, this is terrible. An unpolished concept piece for a contest a couple of years ago. I'm gradually retooling it in my spare time, fixing all of the horrible issues and rewriting James and Severus characters. As for the DumbledoreGrindelwald scene, yeah, that's definitely scrapped as it is and going to be done from the ground up, barring one or two ideas.**


	30. 30:Title-prompts! Plots free to nab, use

**A/N**: Bit a preface for this one- all of these are responses to the Harry Potter Random Story Title Generator(see www (period) seventhsanctum (period) com (forward-slash) generate (period) php (question mark) Genname=hpstory). Site cranks out a title and it is up to the writer to fill the story in thereafter. Nothing but outlines and plot, but hey.

* * *

><p><strong>Harry Potter<strong> and the **Grimoire of Elysium,**

_For eons, the Grimoire of Elysium has foretold the passage of events taking place everywhere throughout the world where Man is involved, and even predicted reactions to-come in the immediate future surrounding them. It has seen the rise and fall of cities, empires, and entire nations, as the hands who hold it transpire from good to evil and back again. It has been sought greedily since the fall of Rome two thousand years ago, but not until Lord Voldemort stumbled upon it in the lost legion's resting place in Albania has it resurfaced in the modern world. And now, fifteen years after the fact, will the coming second-war have any hope for the Light?_

**Harry Potter **and the **Unknowable Prophet,**

_Legend says that the creator of the Grimoire of Elysium was tortured by the guilt of his prior failures to the world; research into immortality, to cure sicknesses and early death, only introduced a plague more vile than any other in human history - the Dementors. Time spent trying to rid them from the world lost when no known spell, charm, or curse would permanently suffice. And in the end, when the Patronus Charm was invented by another after thirty years, it was not joy but immense bitterness and grief that wracked him, so potent that he would eventually expunge his own identity from the history books - no memory would recall his face, no stroll or record would retain his name, and even the Grimoire could not recognize his actions. Now Harry Potter must figure out how the Unknowable Prophet escaped the fate predicted by the book if he is ever to vanquish Voldemort forever._

**Harry Potter **and the **Sorcerers Gateway,**

_'At a central junction between two lines, a Gateway beyond this realm dwells.' Such is the quote attributed to the ancient Sorcerers Gateway from which the Unknowable Prophet learned his lessons and created so much at so great a cost, and in the end put to use to remove himself altogether. Others who have stumbled upon one in recent millennia have created the legendary Deathly Hallows as if from thin air, and later still the Veil of Death held closely within the Department of Mysteries. But it is Herpo the Foul who reaped the most benefit from the Sorcerers Gateway in ancient Greece, and who sacrificed more of his humanity than even Voldemort could manage despite mangling his soul. What must Harry Potter sacrifice, and what will he gain in return? For he does not know that the Gateway can not grant the same result twice, even if the same sacrifice or greater is made._

**Harry Potter **and the** Litch's Wand,**

_With the fall of Albus Dumbledore at last, the prowess of the Elder Wand has flowed into Voldemort's control. But while the Elder Wand is mere imitation of Death's own wand, there exists one most truly fashioned from the ethereal currents of the underworld and brought forward into this plane, as desired by Herpo the Foul three thousand years ago. Its vile corruption ate away at his sanity and his flesh, for that which is dead is not meant to co-exist alongside the living. When he finally rotted altogether and should have faded into the afterlife, the very first horcrux kept his spirit tethered and his skeleton animated. It is said that Herpo forsook his given name for the title of Litch, befitting his new form. The Litch endured well into the middle-ages, and was put down at last by Myrddin Emrys, who banished the wand and its maker into the deepest recesses of the world in remembrance that it would be needed again one day. In exchange for his soul, and unknowingly sacrificing the horcrux in his skull by chance, Harry Potter is likewise blurred from proper recognition by the Grimoire and guided along the Litch's path by the Sorcerers Gateway._

**Harry Potter** and the **Chalice of Bones,**

_While Voldemort goes into further madness in trying to figure out where Harry Potter has vanished, the latter descends through spires of grating stone and rotting vegetation far beneath Ireland, walking through craggy fissures and beside molten rivers, until at last he arrives in the Deep Dark nearest the gap between reality and the afterlife. All that remains of the twisted, broken Litch is a Chalice of Bones filled to the brink with the Wand's disjointed ectoplasm. When nothing he does solidifies it proper, Harry Potter realizes he must drink the hideous concoction and become the next Litch before the Wand will recognize him- a small price to pay after the rest he has lost so far._

**Harry Potter **and the **Ice of Death,**

_As soon as he finishes the last drop from the Chalice of Bones, Harry's body is wracked by hideous agony, and the rapturous life contained within him begins to pale and diminish. The Litch's Wand gradually seeps out of his hands and encompasses his natural holly and phoenix feather construct, imbuing it with a power unmatched, and hours later, when the pain finally settles to a constant throb and splinter within every cell, Harry Potter rises and begins the trek back to the surface world. When he emerges six days and nights later, he feels no warmth, no pain, and nothing at all within the thin and hollowed figure he has become. Garbed in the Invisibility Cloak, he marches upon London as a dying reaper, and the Litch's Wand his scythe._

**Harry Potter** and the **Cold of Infinity,  
><strong>

_In the six months sense Lord Voldemort arose again, in the mere weeks since he slew Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, he has worked to bend the world to his complete control. The Grimoire of Elysium has allowed him to send the Death Eaters instantly throughout the world to murder any sign of opposition, and with the Statute of Secrecy in utter tatters, even the muggles have been cowed with their leaders slaughtered. The only obstruction to his satisfaction is the disrupted scrawls explaining where, and what, Harry Potter is and is doing. It all comes to a close when Harry finally dissolves the barriers protecting the Ministry of Magic from unauthorized access, simply pointing his dead wand and siphoning the life away from any and all that cross his unseen path, and he confronts Voldemort for the second time in his life. Anticlimactically, it takes no more effort to vanquish the Dark Lord and sever his ties to the Horcruxes than it had anything else, and gathering the Grimoire up, he departs for the Sorcerers Gateway to cast both book and wand back into the ether they came from - and finds himself pulled inward as well, and spun out somewhere else. Death is but the next journey after life._

* * *

><p><strong>Sirius Black<strong> and the **Talisman of the Summoner,**

_When Sirius Black fell through the Veil within the Department of Mysteries, he expected that his life would be over. And in one definition of the word, that is indeed true; he is certainly no longer capable of living withing the wizarding world that he knew. No, when he awakens from the abrupt darkness and unconsciousness that had swept over his mind mere moments after stumbling into the Veil, he finds himself trapped in his Animagus state and crouching across from a kneeling dark haired boy with odd red markings down his cheeks, a bizarre metal headband inscribed with some kind of rune in the middle of it, and blood dripping down from between his teeth where one thumb had been bitten into quickly. While the smoke clears and a heavy talisman is revealed beneath the boy's left hand, the only thing he can think is that Dumbledore was right yet again; this is definitely going to be his next great adventure, whether he wants it to or not._

**A/N: Sirius Black the Ninja Dog! The Inuzuka clan! Horrible Naruto-based crossover! What isn't to like?**

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong>Harry Potter<strong>**** and the** ****Star of the****** **Crusader**,  
><em>In the far middle-east, rumors have swept among the mystic villages for weeks now that the ancient Star of the Crusader is due to pass into celestial harmony for the first time in nearly three hundred years. Anyone with even an ounce of darkness in their pasts recognizes the significance of that heavenly alignment, and the old fears preserved by oral tradition send a flurry of panic and chaos flooding through every heart; superstitions scowled upon mere days before are treated with the highest respect, modern conveniences abandoned for their ancestors simple means, and ancient gods are prayed to for the first time in generations. But despite their seaming repentance and attempts to avoid further sin, in the heart of Damascus, the Gathering calls to the children of the Crusaders, no matter how far removed they are throughout the world... and they will know who truly has atoned and who has not.<em>

**Harry Potter** and the **Holy** **Crusader**,  
><em>As his fourth year at Hogwarts comes to a close, Harry Potter feels an unknown and undying stirring within his blood to go forth and do something. Something so potent and necessary that it is as if he were stricken with the need the same as hunger or thirst - a natural aspect of his body crying out for response. With at least a basic idea of the greater means of transportation available to wizardkind, he departs with a sense of understanding gradually surfacing - where, and when, if not the why. With every kilometer he approaches the destination the greater the sense grows within himself; and so to does the imminent feeling of dread and relief, of sorrow and determination. After two months travel by air, boat, and broomstick, he knows what his calling is. He knows why he has been pulled toward Damascus, and why the apparent reading of every person around him feels decidedly bent, as if they are corrupted to one degree or another. The time of the next Crusades has come, and the Holy Crusaders are ready to purge the world once again.<em>

**Harry Potter** and the **Holy** **Savagery**,  
><em>Empowered by the Star of the Crusader burning brightly within the celestial skies, Harry and the other Crusaders hold the one and only meeting necessary before they depart; at a glance they may read the karma of the individual nearest and judge if they are worthy of living in the new world, or else must be executed for the sake of purifying the darkness. Now they must decide the issue of magic for the first time since the witch trials in the middle-ages and sixteen hundreds, and decide if those who wield it must be weighed the same as those who can not. That several of the gather hundreds are capable of it does not distract them, even if their own karmic measurements are skewered and undefinable. In little time at all the Holy Crusaders have made their decisions... and the world itself is sacked, pillaged, and burned anew with a savagery not truly seen since the age of the mongols long before.<em>

**Harry Potter** and the **Blessed Stone**,

_Ten years after erasing the old world-order and abolishing the outdated Statute of Secrecy, both muggles and wizardkind have learned to fear the Holy Crusaders once again. Guided by a supernatural force, they march upon a city and ravage it thoroughly, punishing each sin as if it were the greatest; with death and dismemberment. But though their horrific course, the world has been tamed. Murder, mayhem, and mere disobedience within their control has gone extinct. Only the smallest and most heavily fortified domains resist still, and the Star of the Crusader has also grown farther and farther away after the very first year, taking back what enhancements to their preternatural abilities that it had endowed them with earlier on. When the last scraps of wizard-lead resistance stumble upon Lord Voldemort's lingering wraith again, they desperately place all of their final hopes upon his vindictive shoulders and deliver the life-blood of their own survival to date... the Philosophers Stone._

****Harry Potter** **and the** **Ethereal**** **Armor**,

_Preserved by his horcruxes, resurrected again by the strength of the Philosophers Stone, and carrying the plans carefully constructed over several years following his second brush-with-death at the hands of Harry Potter seven years before, Lord Voldemort pulls together resources unseen in almost a thousand years; the knowledge honed from his studies into immortality and the Dark Arts refined to the highest degree. With the Holy Crusaders ever-diminishing with the Star's passing, they must make fewer and fewer attempts to patrol the world and crash against the few and scattered domains of resistance, and they are ill-prepared for the caliber of Lord Voldemort's preparations, let alone the might carried behind them. And like a jagged spire of stone enduring the crashing of the sea, he weathers their pitiful attempts to slay him anew and castrates their own until only Harry Potter, the last Crusader, stands in his way again._

* * *

><p><strong>Harry Potter<strong> and the **Torch of Death**

_Fire has embodied many, many different thematic forms throughout the ages since its introduction to our kind. It has been our first true discovery, our first reluctant-friend, and our first source of an higher type of knowledge. With the advent of magical prowess many thousands of years later, it evolved alongside us into a tool beyond all others; changing shape to entertain our young, illuminate our caverns and nights, and finally becoming a vast arsenal of weaponry shaped and guided by our desires. We have ever sought to tame it and create it in equal measure, and to that end have even born some seeds from this nihilistic task during Uther Pendragon's age; for while Myrddin Emrys' Phoenixes may come to respect and serve us for a generation or an single day, Fiendfyre exists only to consume all before its path in a pyre of suffering. It was born of Morgan le Faye's Torch of Death, and it shall ever return there and spring forth anew when the Torch's voracious appetite needs feeding. A thousand years since the fall of Camelot will bring a new tide of burning death and despair to its spiritual-successor, Hogwarts, disguised as the fabled Goblet of Fire._

**Harry Potter** and the **Soldier's Fire**,

_There exist few known ways in our world that may resist the overawing might brought on by a surge of Fiendfyre; the dead void within the breadth of space, suffocating the malicious will that binds it together without mercy or care, and the Soldier's Fire, born from the embrace of the Phoenix bond at an sufficiently potent level. Few could imagine that the Torch of Death might resurface again, but Fawkes has known since the predictions of it's maker that terrible days await the era once it is. When Albus Dumbledore is smote during the faux-Goblet of Fire's rekindling, and great swathes of dark-flame spread to swallow up half of the Professors and opposing school students in the next moments, the Phoenix must make a swift decision over who-next shall inherit it's bond, and how to contain the Torch before it feeds any further. Only one name stands out as immediately worthy - Harry Potter. But will Harry be able to bond with the agitated, furious creature to the necessary level, or will the Torch consume ever-more victims in the meanwhile, including all of Hogwarts itself?_

**Harry Potter** and the **Divine Fire**,

_In the first seconds of its reawakening, the Torch of Death has already consumed the entire Professor's table and made imminent progress on devouring the opposing students. In the next several it advances upon the four Hogwarts house tables. Fawkes is only able to appear and grab a small handful, those nearest to Harry, and escape again before the Fiendfyre approaches it - and for just one short, harried moment, Phoenix Song mourns Dumbledore's death and repels the vile inferno back into the Torch once more, if only temporarily. In the coming days Harry must learn more than he had ever thought there to be regarding Phoenixes, including how, and more particularly why, they and the Torch were created so long ago. Both were born from the dying stars observed in the night sky, but while Myrddin Emrys' reserved his loyal creations to only the most distant and nearly depleted of these, Morgan le Faye matched him and more in the choice of supernovae for her pet-project. Hogwarts begins to crumble as more and more of the Torch's power renews and it sends out new waves to demolish the school, clashing violently with the poor bursts of Soldier's Fire that Harry can manifest to hold it back. The Ministry of Magic only makes the situation worse by trying to interfere, and the wards holding Hogwarts together begin to buckle under the combined onslaught of such destructive energies._

**Harry Potter **and the** Apocalypse of Fire**,

_The worst at last comes to pass, as the Torch of Death finally processes the lives it has eaten and the magical strength contained therein. Surpassing Harry's struggling Soldier's Fire and the pitiful assault brought forth by the Ministry, it explodes out of the failing wards and into the world at large, spreading without restraint across all of Ireland and slowed only to a crawl by the great oceans between it and the rest of the world. Harry must come to understand Fawkes on a level not seen since before Myrddin passed and the Phoenixes wept molten tears in their mourning, shattering many of the bonds that had tethered them to their current forms from their grief, and he must find a way to gather the Phoenixes back together again in the aftermath if he is ever to overcome the Torch of Death and destroy it forever - thereby ridding the world of Fiendfyre at long last. But even if he succeeds, what will be left of the earth? Will humanity find a way to survive in the wake of this apocalyptic razing?_

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: So, yeah. A bit unusual.


	31. 31: Naruto-FMA Fusion snippet

It starts as an unbearable itch just beneath the entirety of your skin, crawling along from centimeter to centimeter like a hundred thousand of Shino's bugs, burrowing down into the veins and flowing along your bloodstream into every organ. From there it only magnifies, dissolving into a raging burn that sears into the tiniest nerve-ending and scours deeper still, until your very bones have been scorched and licked raw by the gnawing blaze.

It shields you from the immediate-emptiness, the blank canvas stretching into every corner within your fleeting sight. In the slowest moments, when the inferno consuming you alive is at its weakest, you've seen the glimpses. Nothing but pale, never-ending white, above, behind, below, aside. The only possible object in the midst is yourself, and the companionship you've established with the pain, welcoming it and embracing it after all of your years together.

And then, abruptly, it is gone. With no more forewarning than the most recent recession of its depth, the pain that you've come to know so thoroughly, so intimately, has vanished. As if it had never existed, save the briefest lingering tingles and rough aches.

The alien void left behind should not be. You know it down to your core - _this is wrong_.

Something else stirs from the dredges of your scoured shell to try and fill that pit - a feeling that tells you to uncoil from the sudden ball you've unconsciously rolled into beneath your cold sweat.

It tells you to sit up and finally stare at the things you've refused to acknowledge around you so far.

You ignore it.

Fear blossoms beneath the unknown instinct as you stay there in the cramped position, eyes clenched shut and waiting for the pain to return.

That instinct tries another angle, and you arch your back again and reach up as if trying to snatch back the fleeting sensations, the last ties to that pain. They are gradually smothered instead until there is nothing more of it present within your figure. Without even meaning to you sit upright and the fear subsides, dragging with it a fraction of your desperate need to be reunited with that pain. Your instinct grips your heart and chokes you with the sudden, wild range of emotions that had been suppressed and forgotten about in this place; anticipation; agitation; and anguish.

They're the last emotions you remember before the pain stole them all away, and your eyes blinked from the growing darkness _outside_ into this white desolation.

Your first true thought here stumbles out of the shadows of your mind. It climbs unsteadily toward the surface, digging and clawing toward freedom.

_Am I alive?_

A moment later and a voice answers your unspoken question.

"You're alive, boy. You're more alive than any other human I've ever met. I congratulate your wellspring of overawing _life_!" The voice is an eager and happy replica of your own, and your head snaps around with a short crack from the disuse of your body.

"W... who..._ what _are you?" You mumble around a dry throat - the appearance of the voice's owner startles your question midway through. Cloaked in the same white as this blank place, outlined only by a thousand blood-red pinpricks, the _thing_ shares your facial scars beside a wide and leering grin.

"I'm _you_. And I've been waiting all of this time for _you_ to finally realize it." The blood leaking out of those pinpricks spreads to encompass his whole figure, leaving behind a darkened shape in the unmistakable form of yourself. A hand stretches upright and clenches down viciously, as the mouth spreads open into a rough and joyous laugh, splaying the white teeth in red as well. When it settles down he leans forward and stares at you with bloody, pupil-less eyes.

"What do you desire the most in the world, Namikaze Naruto? What would you exchange to obtain it?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Short Naruto/Full Metal Alchemist fusion. It was suggested that the forbidden jutsu on the scroll that Naruto stole way back when wasn't Kage Bunshin, or at least not solely that, but the way to open the Gate or Portal of Truth. Set in the middle of the Haku/Naruto&Sasuke fight, thus the pain and bloody appearance of the Truth - took quite a few poison senbons to take Naruto down. **


	32. 32: Future of Welcome to Battle School?

Harry Potter- now eleven years of age, the age when potential commanders began to stand out amongst the general soldiers, the age when magical strength reached the first threshold and allowed for newer rune-suits to be fully powered, stood upon the edge of the battle room hallway with the rest of Horntail army. Like the other dragon-breed armies, they were headed by a thirteen- or fourteen year old magical, in this case Cedric Diggory, and they had no muggles present unlike the majority of the other specialized crews.

Their suits simply weren't compatible with non-magical entities; the last kid to try one on had found himself in the medical bay for three months, and when he finished recovering after five, the regular rune-suits wouldn't attune to him any longer. Some complained that it was unfair, giving the wizards their own unique armies._ Where were the all-muggle armies, then?_ they demanded in between classes. _You're lucky to be included in our battles at all, shove off!_ was the usual answer the same. Still, a fair few were just grateful that they didn't have to compete in those circuits, as dragon armies were always endowed with greater damage capabilities and more hazardous terrain in the battle room, to which no few bragged in great effect. And when the sixteen- and seventeen year old filled legend armies clashed, the medical bays were left overflowing with emergency treatments on both sides of the blood-division.

Today Horntail army was going up against Vipertooth army; brute force versus brutal speed. The battlefield was bound to be strewn with debris that would clog up both lines of vision and serve their opponents with the quicker on-the-fly adjustment of plan. Diggory wasn't speaking, as usual. He was too busy trying to categorize his knowledge of Vipertooth tactics, and he wasn't sharing his thoughts with his Aurors, also as usual. That would come after he finally stuck his head into the battle room and had a chance to see what they were up against, and only after another twenty to thirty seconds of last comparison would he share his plan with the rest of the troops.

Stupid, stupid. Horntail tied more battles than it won with Diggory in charge. Better than outright losses, but he took too much time with thought, organization, strategy- and counter strategy, when all he needed to do was a brief ten-second assessment at the most before ordering them out. The other army was almost always half-way to their gate by the time he deployed them. Harry shifted uncomfortably in the newer suit. Two weeks of practice before the first game in this circuit, then two more battles in the next week for a month straight, and he still couldn't get rid of the itch on the back of his neck, along the insides of his arms. He shook it off and focused back on the scene before them and his distaste of the commander-in-charge. Everything he had heard about the older boy had proven true since he was brought into Horntail army those short weeks ago.

_We can do better than this_, he thought. _Diggory isn't a fool, but his caution isn't warranted half as often as he falls back on it! If he'd_... abruptly the wall before them went transparent, and Diggory leaned forward enough to see down into the room. He groaned. Those nearest also uttered their despair, which more-or-less confirmed what Harry had suspected.

Another itch developed that put the rest to shame, the itch to _move_ and get into the action _now_ while Vipertooth was still smirking in half-assuaged victory on their flight through the asteroid-field, and it gripped him tightly enough that he felt his breath squeeze out in one slow exhalation. He couldn't stand around and let Diggory's caution defeat them before they had even left the hallway, not _again_.

He shuddered and, without stopping to think about what he was doing, backed away from those beside him and then dashed forward and leaped for the handhelds overhead. He managed to snag one and swing out and down before Diggory had even processed what was going on, almost clipping the older boy on the shoulder with his feet, and he understood immediately why his commander had bemoaned this battle room setting; it was indeed a minefield, with dim lighting and worst of all _hazards_.

He exhaled a hollow breath. For once Diggory's over-thought plans seemed logical and clearly the best decision to take. _What was I thinking?_ His face twisted into a grimace. Too late to regret his haste, but if he managed to survive this fiasco he'd be lucky to make commander before he was fourteen, and out of Horntail army for sure. Diggory wouldn't stand for insubordination. _Couldn't_, if he wanted to save any face at all, and that was one of the few things a commander _had_ to have, or else the whole army would be doing what Harry had just done and tactics altogether would utterly fall apart.

He chanced a glance over a shoulder and up toward their own gate and saw the look of suppressed disgust etched into the other boys' expressions'. Diggory would have his hide, and he was _still_ debating how to rescue this battle despite the stupidity of a single soldier throwing it all out whack.

The first Vipertooth cleared an asteroid and slowed in surprise, as far as one could after launching into zero-gee. His body spread out from the usual tightly-compact formation and he blinked, twice. That was all the time Harry needed to look back and see him, and if he was going to suffer for this mistake, then he'd be damn sure he brought down at least one enemy for it first.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **A sample of what I expect will come in _Welcome to Battle School_ when we get a few more chapters in. I'm still going over the shuttle-launch and subsequent docking sequence and arrival at Hogwarts, so we have a long way to go still.


	33. 33: Tiny Naruto snippet, Sot6P focused

_"All things that begin have an end, Naruto. But not all endings have a beginning."_

_Blinding, bitterly cold light swallowed his vision, his ears fell deaf, his throat mute. All he could feel was an ethereal cold, that terrible brightness glaring into his eyes with the force of a thousand suns..._

"Wake up, _Hagoromo_! You've slept for far too long!"

Another splash of icy saltwater soaked the young man sitting cross-legged before the sea, dampening his already wet robe and matting his unruly spiked hair close to his head. Deeply ringed amethyst eyes sprang open as his mother, standing scant feet away, continued to twirl her fingers and the wind-struck inlet before them bent to her will. Nine more currents rose and fell upon her son in an attempt to stir him from his living death.

Hagoromo did not blink, or flinch, though his body should have been shivering long ago. He ignored her quiet intake of breath when she realized he had finally opened his eyes, the half-step she took toward him in relief. He simply unfurled his legs and rose steadily to his feet, his staff clattering to the damp soil unseen before the million-memories of a hundred-thousand lives grappling with his waking mind. The ground shifted and charred beneath his soles as he stepped past his mother and out onto the sea, venting excess chakra to dry his flesh and warm his cloths, no thought given explicitly to the basic chakra molding and simple ninjutsu' performed. They came as easily as the pulse in his veins, an unconscious act of living.

He walked for seven days and seven nights across the seas and across the lands again here and there, engrossed in the act of processing the information of the future of the world he had intended to shape, until he came at last upon the scene of the Shinju's sealing, the last domain it had wreaked havoc and chaos before he subdued it utterly. He stepped into the middle of the ruptured ground and drew in a slow, measured breath.

And then he exhaled, brought his hands together into a single, virulent seal, the culmination of untold millennia worth of insight and understanding, and walked into the sky, between the glowing stars, and settled into the heart of the sun.

_Jutsu_, _chakra_, _jinchuriki_, he thought in his final moments, feeling the Shinju suddenly begin to claw away at his mind with more desperate fury than it had ever delivered in its sealing. The faintest smile broke his lips apart. _All of these things would end with his life, erased by the searing and merciful light above._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: "Does anyone else think Obito will end up reviving everyone with Samsara when the war ends?" **

**"He will make it so every thing happened untill now will be a dream. /Trololo"**

** My response to the above quotes. Definitely t**he shortest one-shot I have ever written. Don't know if anyone else has tried a Sage of the Six Paths-era piece since his name was dropped several chapters ago, just figured I would write a brief response to their joke.**  
><strong>

****Also, I don't know why I posted this as a separate story a few hours ago. My attention hasn't been as focused these last few days as it normally is.****


	34. 34: The many beginnings to Of Arda

Of dimensional transcendence, and the course of Arda relayed.  
>Prologue:<p>

Flames howled across the battlefield, drenching it in showers of ash and scorching rock, as a tongue of the same whipped through the stones of Moria like so much crumbled paper and lashed out across the air.

"This foe is beyond us all..." stepping forward even as his words were swept away before the roar emerging from the dreadnaught of shadow and fire, Gandalf the Grey brought his staff to bare and clapped it thrice upon the ground.

The reverberations from his staff met and matched those of the colossal figure's own, so that as its foot crashed down upon the brittle stonework path, the rock crumbled from within between it and they.

In only a few steps the beast would fall to its own doom, for that was the only way in which they might yet succeed without suffering ill and drastic measures for that victory.

The course of Arda, that is fate by the workings of the Song of the Valar before the workings of the world came to truly pass, was there-after averted from the intended course by the actions of an outside force.

Lightening emerged from a wrinkle in the air, flashing ten and thrice across the air and smoting the path in which the fell creature would yet have stepped upon.

An accompanying boom of great thunder pierced the uneasy noises of the mine and spread across each and every hall within nearly a league of that point.

And, at last, the wrinkle exploded as shadow anew expanded from it, and took form and shape upon the heart of the opposing beast.

For the first time since their father, Gothmorg, had been slain many thousands of years ago thence, a Balrog was taken from this world and passed once more into the halls of the Maia, of Mandos, and was thereafter chained upon the Outermost Domain outside of Arda with its master.

A man-sized figure slumped to the ground in the wake of the fiery eruption of the Balrog's living shell, and though fragments of now-cooling lava and plates of fading darkness fell down around him, the Company looked on in not a little awe.

Gandalf had not moved from his position in shielding the others, but he lowered at last the hand that had been raised before his face, and he looked upon the stranger in wonder and vast concern, ere the beating drums of the goblins and the Orcs reminded them all of the danger that existed still.

"Fly, you fools!" The wizard ordered heavily, striding forward quickly and lightly and leaning down to grasp the strange raiment the figure wore.

It felt oddly textured to his aged fingers, but he felt a subtle power radiating outward even as the man- for man he now saw it was indeed, with beard to match the scraggly hair- lay unconscious before him.

For a hesitant moment Gandalf was undecided.

Then he swept an arm beneath each shoulder and forced the man to his feet, and together they passed back across the crumbling passage way, where Gandalf paused only long enough to smash his staff to the surface twice more and insure that their foes would have no little difficulty in chasing them further still.

Then he raced after his companions with all due haste, even as his mind whirled and tried to understand what had happened.

* * *

><p>"What do we do with him, if indeed we <em>can<em> do anything?" Boromir asked uneasily once the company had departed from Moria at length, and come upon the open lawn of Parth Galen, carrying the burden of the new and unsettling arrival upon uneasy wings.

Foremost among their thoughts were that if such a being could appear, in such a storm from which no conditions were there to give it rise in the first, and that he could utterly ruin a foe of such caliber, would they not be wiser to hold true and maintain what measure they could in obtaining his services rather than abandon him 'pon the road?

Gandalf would not allow them to do so, and as the leader of the Fellowship, it was easiest for him to sway the Hobbits, and Aragorn besides, whom was equally as disturbed as his fellow man.

"We awake him, if naught else. You desired the object of our mission to aide Gondor in her time of need, Boromir, and surely you would not turn astride that which slew the _Balrog_ so as a fitting replacement?" He commented into the silence.

A shadow passed across Boromir's face at the reminder of his embarrassment at Rivendel, and his hands clenched and unclenched in frustration. "But what say you of his allegiance? Where has this _man_, if truly his guise is such, come from?" He questioned grimly.

"Allow the guilty to speak of their own volition before you judge them unduly," the wizard interjected as the figure before them began to stir and shudder, and roll until he was on his stomach, reaching weakly hither and fro for an unseen desire.

"_Bloody hell..._" the man uttered in a tone unrecognizable, and very nearly incomprehensible to their ears. Only Gandalf himself truly understood, though he frowned at the unknown meaning of what was likely to be an oath of some kind.

Black eyes looked out from beneath the shaggy black hair, and the man pushed up quickly to his feet, and looked around at the others blankly if uncertainly, and his gaze darted from one set of eyes to another with a hesitancy to meet them for any length of time.

"_What is going on here? Who... are you, and better yet, who am I?_" He asked. That set of questions caused a sharp line to mar Gandalf's already well-aged brow, and he stepped forward and gripped the stranger by one shoulder tightly again, wheeling him about to look upon one another more clearly.

A flicker of recognition passed before his eyes, but then it was gone again just as quick as it had come. "Do you understand me?" Gandalf asked him.

Just as they were muddled in recognition of his words, so to did the words of they to him come out rough and distant, so that it was only by the power inherent in each of they two that the messages they bore toward one another were understood in full.

He nodded. "_Man le estach_?" Gandalf asked, and this time the meaning was entirely lost, so that he shook his head and stepped back, as if fearing some wicked spell was being cast upon himself.

Frodo it was who interrupted. "I bid that we bring this stranger forth, if it would hasten our journey forward. I do not feel at ease standing like a lone cornstalk above its fellows on a warm day, and I would that we decide toward west or east which path we should stride toward," he said quickly and entirely unintelligibly to the new man.

* * *

><p><strong>The original concept for Of Arda. Twas intended to be Sirius Black that arrived in Middle-earth. I eventually kept experimenting over the next week and began to work instead toward a Dresden FilesLotR XO, as seen below.**

* * *

><p>"There are Ways, and then there are <em>Ways<em>, Harry Dresden. Do you recognize this to be true?"

A frown spread across his features. "I know that. Someone rather close to me explained how wide the Nevernever truly is."

"I do not speak of the Nevernever, Knight. I speak of that which dwells beyond the _Outer Gates_.

* * *

><p>The glint of gold shone in the sunlight as if possessed by an inner, radiant flame. As I held it in my fingers, I could feel a dire pull to put it on, to grasp the flow of undisputed <em>power<em> contained within, and to rise up greater than these lower mortals.

I tossed it back upon the stone platter with a light clatter and raised a hand. "Fires of Mount Doom, huh?" I asked the gathering of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and now with my addition, Wizards in the plural, effectively bringing the shouting match to a grinding halt.

Numerable eyes fell upon my form, some in wonder, others still in outrage and concern.

Elrond stepped up warily. "That is so, stranger. I would wonder whence you came, for I felt no such presence 'pon this land ere the meeting began. Who are you, and to what have you come here for?" He asked harshly.

I noticed that no one seemed to approve of my sudden appearance at what was probably a secret meeting. Guess I forgot to knock, when I stumbled through the _Way_.

I turned my hand from the ring and curled the fingers back until just the index was left, and I pointed at my only nearest fellow among those here.

"You're Gandalf the Grey at this point, right?" I asked him. "And old Saruman the White is still pitched up in Isengard, stirring up Orcs and whathaveyou?"

Gandalf stepped forward quite quickly at my questions. "Aye, that is my name in Middle-earth, among several others-" He began, and I cut him off.

"Mithrander, Tharkun, Greyhame, Gandalf the Grey, The Grey Pilgrim, Stormcrow, and Olórin in particular, thanks for the confirmation." I interrupted him.

"Which means that you're Elrond," I pointed at the ancient elf, "Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas, Sam, Frodo, the other two Hobbits hiding behind a bush, and an assortment of no-names that won't have any value or effect toward the outcome of this day."

"In otherwords, I'm in Rivendell."

* * *

><p><strong>I interrupted the scene here to try it again just below.<strong>

* * *

><p>"Which means that you're Elrond," I pointed at the ancient elf, then spread my hands in general toward the land around us. "And I'm in Rivendell, before the Fellowship even sets out. Joy of joys."<p>

Both Gandalf and Elrond stood up taller, and I could feel them drawing in power to do something. I drew in an effort of will of my own. "I forgot how uptight you two were at this point in the books. Right, excuse my bluntness, and allow me to try again," I said.

"My name is Dresden the Black," I said. "Namely because everything that gets in my way is burned to a nice, charry-crisp, over the last twelve years. You need to do something about the ring, which means marching into Mordor and slinging it back into a pit of lava, as Arda should go."

I looked around at them. "Who would take up the ring? Who would show the fortitude to resist Sauron's- excuse me, Mairon_'_s, will?"

"_Pyrofuego_," I stated at last, thrusting my hand forward. Thick and voluminous flames ensconced and engulfed the surface of the stone where the ring dwelt, and I channeled Lash's power consciously.

After several lengthy seconds, I let the power go. A terrible scream rent the air in the middle of those seconds, almost toward the end, and a bright smile spread across my face as my fire faded and left little more than a pool of melted gold upon the slag.

* * *

><p><strong>And here we come at last upon the final piece before I truly settled into writing the version of <em>Of Arda<em> that was eventually** **posted.**

* * *

><p>There are Ways throughout the Nevernever, some of them relatively safe given the surroundings, and others quite deadly to even step one toe within, and then there are <em>Ways<em>, which are unknown and guide beyond simple afterlives and the like.

I had thought the _Outer Gates_ were just that, the gateways to such things as did not belong in this understanding of our universe. I _still_ don't know what they truly are, but I know what they aren't; borders to worlds we assume are myth, are mere fiction.

That would be the _Ways_ I just mentioned. And I was stupid enough to stumble upon them by trying to catalog what was still accurate of my mothers knowledge, and to fill in what she had left blank in my own time.

* * *

><p>I stumbled out of the hastily made hole back into reality and fell face-first upon the white stone, landing with a thud and a clatter as my staff rolled free of my fingers.<p>

The noise I wasn't even aware of died down quickly, and several footsteps followed even as I rolled over and thrust out with my will, closing the _Way_ that I had just stumbled out of and ensuring the goblins and heliowraiths and what-have-you were trapped on the other side.

An aged hand gripped my duster and quickly yanked me up to my feet, as an equally worn staff appeared under my nose. "Name yourself, outsider, and be quick of it! How have you come by this place, where only elf-friends may yet be welcomed?" A voice I recognized despite the years since it had last been heard spoke quickly and not a little harshly.

I looked from face to face and felt my disgruntled anger at the _Way_ fade beneath a rising nergasm of nostalgia and awe. "It exists..." I murmured slowly, and then again louder and with more sheer exuberance entering my tones. "_It exists! Middle-earth!_"

Old Gandalf faced me beside Elrond, and next to him his daughter Arwen, looking as young as ever in a vaguely Sidhe-manner, and then Aragorn and Boromir, bearded, weathered, and strong as Michael in all possibility. Beside them sat Gimli, stout and firm, and reminding me rather of Mouse in an odd way, and Legolas, Sam, Frodo.

If Murphy were here she wouldn't stand much taller than the hobbits, and I smiled just a little wider as my gaze fell at last upon the stone pedestal at the center of the hearing, and spied the golden ring set upon its surface.

"Speak, stranger!" Elrond commanded and managed to remind me of where I was and what was happening. I remained in Gandalf's grasp and thought about the questions they had asked a few moments prior.

"I come by the _Ways_, the unwelcome paths beyond the reaches of Arda as it were naturally wrought, that in which connect all outside of the Outer Void with the myriad of creation in its true splendor," I managed to say fairly quickly. "I come from _earth_, a modern-earth, in which not even legends or true-tales exist of this magnificent place or its peoples, and I come by flat chance exploring the greater domains between _here_ and _there_ and the unpleasant things making such their own."

"I name myself Dresden the Black, wizard of the White Council, and warden besides."

* * *

><p><strong>I've one last micro-scene I figure I should throw in before concluding, a sort of what-if for the latest version of <em>Of<em>_ Arda_.**

* * *

><p>I looked upon the Nine, and my spirit shivered. I hadn't expected to feel like I was standing before some sort of demi-god, but the emanations of power flowing from them was not that far from what I felt from Mab, dosed with a few hints of Mother Winter for good measure.<p>

The equivalent here was, of course, Sauron and through him his own master, Morgoth. In the Nine, in their Rings, and through they to the One Ring and its ruler and master, the power flickered across the ages back toward the beginning of Arda, when Morgoth had spilled his strength into his greater servants to empower them beyond the elves and men, and Sauron himself had made the same mistake in the creation of the Rings.

I wasn't facing mere mortal champions like the Summer Knight and, technically myself, the Winter Knight. I was looking upon the Red King, and Duchess Arianna, and Duke Paolo Ortega, all rolled together and multiplied by nine.

I was facing a force of combined might the likes of which I was severely underestimating, and overestimating my own self, without the enhancements of Mab surging through my veins.

What I had, really, was the base power my godmother had traded me all those years ago, and the strengths I had gathered up to the last year or so in combat and strife and near-death experiences.

That said, I had so much kinetic energy stored up within my _own_ bands, and the imagination and freedom to expel the flames of hell itself and creation too if I so desired, that I had little doubt that they would walk away with damage.

"_Pyrofuego!_" I shouted as I thrust my staff forward.

* * *

><p><strong>And that is that. I'm going back through my archives and working on rewriting some future Covenant Primes' scenes that I had jotted down a couple of years ago and I stumbled onto these again in between. I'll probably be updating Oneshots some more in the next week or two with more of the stuff I come upon.<strong>


	35. 35: By the Words of Magic(Potter AU)

Flashes of crystalline light, molten fire, blinding lightning, sprays and showers of jagged earth and stone, torrents of blistering water and thunderous cold sleet, and ruptures of iron and steel all crashed together in a display of primal, elemental warfare.

Harry scrambled behind his _Fidelius Charmed shield_, grasping the same-protected wand attached to the back of it, as he tried to find a single place that wasn't about to be consumed in the ungodly maelstrom.

Somewhere nearby several combatants were stupid enough to scream out the incantation of _Fiendfyre_, and just as soon another two roared the _Zephyr_ spell, one of a very select few capable of smothering those cursed flames.

He did not understand how so many _Enchanters_, _Elemental Lords_ and _Mages_ had appeared after Lord Voldemort had extinguished so much of the life in the world, but it seemed likely to be that it was that very cause that had broken the conduit keeping the walls of reality solid- magicks that had never before been seen or known began to suddenly come to the mind as if by a stray thought, all across the earth.

And now they were all being used in an attempt to become the one, reigning master of the planet.

But while they were desperately trying to eradicate one another, it was soon determined that a general agreement had been reached to prevent anyone from interfering in that goal. And Harry had not only interfered, but he had killed his handful of upstarts near the beginning.

It might have also been the fact that _Words of death_ began to appear to him in the same way that _Words of fire_, _water_, and so on had come to the others. Even still, he had not fostered the talent like his many nemesis' most apparently had, and they had been pushing him harder and harder when they clashed in the streets, hills, and anywhere else.

Dragging his wand through the air, Harry thought and silently cast the first of the tiers of _death-Words_. As he did so a cold surge gripped his heart and squeezed for all it was worth, making him temporarily choke, as a pair of _Elemental Lords_ of_ ice_ and _air _took note of him. In the next moments the energy slipped away from their will, denying what spells they were in the effort of utilizing, though it would not last. They were growing smarter, taking notes and learning from one another even as they killed the opposition relentlessly. Abruptly two of them_ linked_ together, wands crossed at the base, tethering their mind and magic into one another to form a chain-reaction. It would not last long, and they would suffer for it afterward, but the results were seen immediately as sparks of energy began to manifest once more before them, and he gritted his teeth as he resisted the urge to chant from the higher tier vocabulary he had acquired; that was one thing he could never allow himself to do, to allow these mad fools to learn the Words of death as they had the Words of their current element.

He mouthed the spell he dared not say aloud to counteract the union, seeing the _Elemental Lords_ of _air_ preparing to link as well. The chill in his veins vanished altogether and fresh air flooded into his lungs at last as the magic in their wands twisted itself apart and was repelled, rejecting the wooden construct and the core, and in a surge of flaming tinder's, exploded in their grips. He had won a momentarily battle amidst a far greater war; others turned to face him then, recognizing the intruder to their midst. He ducked and rolled into invisibility to avoid the ozone-scented bolt of lightning that raced for his chest. His shield settled across his chest when he stopped moving some seconds later.

His breath came deep as his mind recovered from the previous attempt to kill him, and he waved his wand to obliterate the signs of dirt and gore that had kept with his body and would be as sure a sign of where he stood as if he was still entirely visible at that point.

Just when he felt a moment of relief, a shower of black and green shards fell out of the tumultuous sky and rained down jagged blades of obsidian and jade across the field.

Dread rushed through his body at that sight, and he turned away from the rest of the battle to face the late-comer; and sure enough, there the most potent of the other _Mages'_ stood in his gray armor.

Among them all, he was the only one that seemed to have studied the aspect of war thoroughly enough to capitalize on it as he grew in power. He fought with a militant precision and combative strategies that often times swept the board clear, and his defenses were better than anything observed since the fall of Camelot. An Egyptian-flavored spell propelled the summoned stone missiles through the air again as he raised his steel rod and slashed it outward before his body, ripping up walls of iron and steel from nowhere to block the counter-assaults of fire, ice, and plants that came after his initial volley.

As soon as the walls first purpose was served and as the second volley crashed through the survivors, he banished them and splintered them into millions of jagged grains.

Four plumes of _Fiendfyre_ charged together to nullify the deadly metal, but the other _Mage_ still held the offensive, as he thrust the rod up and out in time with his natural wand, spinning out spirals of bladed chain a foot thick to call on and reflect the bolts of thunder aimed at his body.

Standing up straight and gritting his teeth, Harry set the timer on the portkey charm and applied it to his shield, then gripped his wand with both hands to prepare himself for what was to come.

_Alright, you sodding bastard, _he thought, y_ou're the worst of them all_.

The rest of the opposition was crumbling as it was wont to do before the _Mage's_ superior ability, and they were banding together for strength just to try and hold him off, but like all of the other encounters, it was just a matter of time before this batch were wiped out.

Normally Harry would have welcomed a purging of the madmen and women, but when it was down to just the other _Mage_ and himself down the road, he honestly didn't know if he would have the resources to keep himself alive for the final showdown.

Directly confronting him would be suicide, even with all of the others doing just that merely to try and survive. The volleys of stone and crystal had the advantage of being thin, hardy, and swiftly propelled in massive numbers. It was the reason that they were cutting through shields as if the blue domes were little more than warm butter, and if the_ Mage_ was truly acting as he was wont to do, than the runic cuts carved in solid steel into the surface of each one to negate the known defensive aspects only solidified his advantage against the lesser spell casters.

But there was one thing that he lacked, despite all of his other measures of offensive and defensive efforts; he had yet to truly clash against Harry Potter, _Elemental Lord _of_ death_, _Master of Death_, and hidden _Mage_, outside of the slightest of encounters. Harry had often taken the wiser route to step back and observe who this new-comer was and what he could do- but no more. The time had come to put a stop to him before the _Mage_ grew beyond any boundary to restrain.

Silently, Harry broke apart a section of the earth before him into a hundred small pebbles, and with great concentration, he cast the same_ derivative-Portkey Charm_ on them that he had done on his shield earlier, and banished them to every stretch of the four-corners still traversable in the rapidly crumbling field.

By the time he was done with that, three dozen more men and women had fallen to the greater _Mage_.

At last his own defensive measures were settled into place, and slid one arm through the straps of his shield before gripping his wand once more in between each hand and cancelling his _Disillusionment Charm_.

As he flickered back into view, he turned his head just over one shoulder and spoke aloud. "Rally to me or succumb," he ordered, never once taking his eyes away from the man further ahead of them on his pedestal of upraised earth.

Numerable eyes fell upon his back and just as many minds considered killing their next-nearest-mortal enemy, but compared to the _Mage_ spewing out torrents of energy and death like it was nothing, Harry Potter was by far the lesser threat to their survival that night.

A thousand stones converged upon his body from the sky in a mocking-salute and welcoming salvo, confirming that he had gathered the other man's attention for the first time since his arrival there, and Harry clenched his teeth together as he pulled the trigger of the chained-timer.

With a terrible jerk behind the naval, he vanished and reappeared seventy feet away, gathering his magic together and thrusting his wand up. It was apparent that the foe had first mastered earth-based magic, but the iron magic had not been very far behind, even if he had to utilize his rod as a conduit of focus not unlike the wooden stave's of olde.

Harry thought the second-tier of _death-Words_ and pushed it into the air where the_ Mage_ was conjuring his stones from.

The flow of energy pulling the shards into materialization slowed, but to Harry's surprise, they did not cease altogether. He had never had such a thing happen in all of the years since Voldemort's fall.

A wry laugh cut through the air above the soft whistle of the stones rushing toward his body again, and he was jerked once more to another span of the field.  
><em><br>"_What is the matter, o' Master of Death?_"_ The_ Mage _called out as he thrust the iron rod high, and a burst of liquid metal plumed above his head like a silver sun. It began to grow and spin as it did so, rippling and splitting off miniature dewdrops as if they were tiny stars.

Harry renewed his effort to cut off the other_ Mage's _summoning of earth-base magic, but a wall had cemented itself around them, proving between the two of them which had trained better, harder, and solidified their will properly.

For the first time, Harry regretted not practicing his mastery of the death-Words. He had grown too reliant upon his other skills and fields of practice with magic, and as he had never struggled to destroy another wizard or witch with the first few tiers, unless there was more than one pooling their strengths together, he had given the issue little enough thought.

Exhaling harshly as he was portkeyed away to safety, Harry ground his back teeth together in stubbornness. He would_ not _lose like this! With a sharp gesture he yanked two of the _Elemental Lords_ forward and held onto them despite their surprised shouts and struggles, and vanished with actual disapparition some ways off.

"Listen to me!_" _He ordered quietly, making sure that they were properly covered by the terrain and obscured from view._ "_He's stronger than all of us - alone. I need you_ fire Lords_ and _earth Lords_ to work together and brew a pot of magma beneath the surface. If I'm right, he's only concentrating on his fields of specialty, which means he'll have to try and divert some of the magic and maybe even pull it off, but while he's wasting time doing that, it will kill his summonings or at least slow them down. I can stop them altogether if he releases enough concentration._" _He told them.

Harried silence met his words, but the nearest swallowed dryly._ "_And when we dispose of him?_" _She asked. It was a voice that Harry found himself leaning back from in recognition, as much as dismay.  
><em><br>"_When he's dead and erased... we leave this field in truce. There's too many of your kind in this world, but there's also too many casualties already this night. Maybe it would be best to just let him kill you all and become the last _Mage_ standing, but what then? He could be Merlin incarnate or the next Voldemort, and this time I don't have '_the power he knows not_' to slay the bastard with._" _Harry answered her, and turned back toward the field.

Grimacing, he copied and recreated the keystones for the portkey spell that he was using, and pressed two into their own hands.

With a jerk all three of them reappeared near the rest, and Harry grabbed several more in the same manner to scatter them across the area. He was taking an extreme risk in passing on the method of travel, but if they were wiped out now, he was out of options altogether.

* * *

><p>July, 2005, 8 years after the fall of Voldemort.<p>

* * *

><p>Pain washed through the sensations he had spread out into a spiderweb network, forcing a ragged gasp past his lips as every enchanted pebble, every grain of soil, and every root of grass for a league around dissolved into a churning inferno.<p>

Heat to surpass the depths of the sun, fire more potent than the natural breadth and width of _Fiendfyre_, blossomed into being and ravaged the earth where Harry had attempted to establish a means of sabotage and subterfuge, to worm his magic inside of the protections of the _Mage._  
><em><br>_An agonized realization that he was, again, the lesser spell-castor where it came to the_ Words_, struck at him even as he leaned against the stone barrier and tried to gather his wits together.  
><em><br>_It was impossible to win like this, he also realized, after another few moments. He simply lacked the experience and skill, no matter what efforts he put into it, no matter what accomplishments the_ Elder wand_ bestowed upon him, he was out of his league, and without any of the _Elemental Lords_ to challenge either of them, with they two being the last surviving _Mages_, and with too few _Enchanters_ barely emerging any more over the last three years, Harry could find no way to overcome his opposition.

Which was exactly what he had first feared, that night of first contact.

They may have managed to surprise and overcome him with volcanoes at first, but when he figured out how to blend the _Words_ of earth and fire for himself and actively invoked the same in the next few clashes, despair killed as many as the actual damage. But the kicker, the grand-all-finale, had yet to be unveiled until that day.

A shadow spread before the sun as the enhanced, amplified_ Fiendfire _was wrangled back under the _Mage's_ control and extinguished. As Harry was released of the ties to his failed network magic, he turned to examine the field and found his eyes unable to account for the emptiness of the hole before him, not until he took in the black creeping over the land far beyond it.

He found his neck craning back into the sky and gazing at the vast orb of dark stone and earth descending amid a burning corona toward the field.  
><em><br>_Words escaped him, both magical and mundane- his mouth went dry, his pupils dilated, and a sense unlike any save that of his earliest encounters with Voldemort, of with Dementor's, brewed in the pit of his stomach and rushed up to the top of his spine, spread out along every bone in his body, and numbed his mind.

"Hail, o' Master of Death," the _Mage_ greeted him warmly in the same old manner as he descended from across the field, touching his black and green leather boots to the ground even as he kept one arm raised high toward the sky with the iron rod clasped in between his gloved fingers tightly.

Harry could not take his eyes from the meteor pulled into existence by the _Mage's Words_. It seemed impossible, even by magical standards, to create such a force of nature by a single man.

He honestly doubted if even Dumbledore could have wrought such a thing in his prime.

_"_I must admit, it is quite spectacular, is it not? From a physical standpoint, the threat it imposes, the gravitational pull and effect upon the rest of the world in its awe-full wake, invokes a sense that few other sights can accomplish._" _The _Mage_ called across to him, standing exactly where he had descended.

"From a visual standpoint, however, it is a thing lacking the beauty of other_ earth_ constructs. Like most_ metal_ workings, the_ iron_ undermines the rich baritone of energy and sublime art, lending a credence and creed of ugliness- the flaw of crafting from the empty cold of space, where the eyes may not see and shape the final product. I am afraid that the third eye is good only for gazing upon the matrix and layering process,_" _he continued as if there were nothing at all amiss by a hurtling meteor vastly dwarfing out the sunlight.

Harry could barely comprehend the act, or the strange openness of the other_ Mage._

"Do you understand why, more so than how, I have shown you this act, Harry Potter?_" _The _Mage_ finally asked, and all Harry could do was to shake his head slowly. He had nothing in his repitoire that could slow down the sphere, let alone destroy it, before it impacted against the earth.

A mirthful sigh escaped the other wizard, and with his free hand, the_ Mage_ drew aside the iron mask protecting his identity, and pulled the hood about his head back to his neck, so that his aged face was revealed. The numbness Harry felt increased into a bitter cold, leaving him gasping for breath as the strength bled out of his limbs and sent him tumbling toward the ground on both knees.

"Aye, my youth. This is what you had to become to eradicate the threat of the _Elemental Lords_ and _Mages_, the first time around. This is the end result of fifty years of trials and tribulations in a realm of never-ceasing conflict, of endless disaster and the reshaping of the earth every few dozen months. This, I am afraid, is what happens when you do not educate yourself in the strengths of the _Words_ gifted you by Voldemort's careless measures._" _The elder Potter stated in that same calm, slightly pleasant tone.

"It was worth it, of course. To rid this past of their threat. I intend to rule here to ensure that the youngling _Enchanters_ do not grow into the same_ Elemental Lords_ that I have fought so bitterly in my own time, this I tell you freely. Likewise, I offer you the chance to contest my will, though I believe we both know how that is liable to fair; I can not kill you, for risk of erasing myself, at least just yet. Given enough time to alter this past even further, I may completely self-establish myself as a reasonable singularity and separate all ties with you," He continued in the same vein.

Harry could hardly believe it. He could have accepted it, had the _Mage_ been some form of Voldemort called back from the ether by some unseen, unknown cost to the usage of the Words. But for the mass murderer, the war-criminal by all accounts, to turn out to be some haunted version of himself from a terrible future?

It was almost too much for him to handle.

Of course he would never overcome the other man in combat; he was at least fifty years younger and inexperienced, and all of the tactics he could, that he _would_ eventually develop, were already well known and probably old hat to the Mage.

His stomach twisted into a knot and he turned and threw up at the implications, at the unfairness of these last three years and the countless death toll assumed by both sides, all because of_ him_, ultimately.

"Yes, you finally see it, too. All of it could have been avoided if you had merely studied up on your _Words_ of _death_ and taken a more proactive step to eradicate the early _Enchanters_ and first _Elemental Lords_, before they could become the threat to the world that they did._" _The _Mage_ told him. It was easier to block out the face and try to ignore the familiarity of the tone if he thought of the other man as not_ himself, _but as_ the Mage, _as the wizard he had fought against for all of these years.

"Please, just put the mask back on,_" _Harry finally asked, unable to look_ the Mage_ in the eyes any longer.

"No. No, you made me who I am, Harry. It is the price you must pay for your negligence; here, at least, the billions of lives lost to my future will be spared, for the cost of a few thousand lessers. What you could not do, I have done for you._" _Stepping forward as the meteor grew ever closer toward the earth,_ the Mage_ gripped him by the shoulder and forced Harry to his feet.

"Neither of us believe that you could possibly best me in combat, and truly, killing you has never been my intention. Step aside and allow me the freedom I deserve, uncontested any longer, and I will allow you to learn what I have and join the future I intend to brew into being._" The Mage _offered him not unkindly.

Harry couldn't force himself to look at the aged face of the elder wizard._ "_Why would you allow me to do that? And what if I refused?_" _He asked.

The Mage pressed his iron rod to Harry's throat, and with a silent_ Word_ of the second tier of_ ferromagic,_ cuffs and chains and manacles of bitingly cold steel slithered into reality and engraved themselves into his skin, replacing the first layer of flesh so tight were they bound.

Harry hissed in pain as he was captured and taken prisoner, twisted into a pose that arched his spine terribly and forced him to look up at the overhanging sphere of burning stone.

"If you refuse, Harry Potter, I will make you suffer as Voldemort never has and never could. This is just the lightest of the_ iron maiden_ spells I have invented to torture information from my enemies. I could turn your blood-cells to iron barbs, replace your muscles with wire-wrapped stone, and fill your veins with molten silver." The _Mage_ told him quietly, as if disappointed._ "_And none of this would kill you for several hours of time. More, if you will held out and your magic gradually fought it off and preserved your heartbeat against all logic; several _Elemental Lords_ have endured for days in this manner, so great was there will and control over their bodies," he added after a moment.

Pointing the rod at the sky, the _Mage_ halted its forward passage and reversed the gravitational pull upon it, so that it was instead pushed away.

"If anyone dares challenge my rule again, let the new moon be a warning to them of what I will do and what I am capable of performing when tried."

* * *

><p><strong>This is, quite possibly, one of my favorite pieces. Its jumbled in the beginning but I got a lot of satisfaction out of writing it back then. I never did expand upon it much further than this, unfortunately. And for bonus points, all of this was meant to be flashback-sequences for a HPDresden Files XO around the time of _Dead Beat_, which I wrote a few pitiful scenes for and abandoned to expand on the Words era stuff instead.**

**And an edit! I see now that quite a few words were lost in the process of copying the original _italicized_ scenes over and saving the de-italicized remains. I don't know why the Doc Manager does that, but its screwed with me before with I import italics. I've fixed the main errors I noticed going over this again.**


	36. 36: Down the road in Covenant Primes

_High-orbit above Planet Urthaghus, October 1st 2532, Spider Nebula_ / _Destroyer_ Merlins Beard_, en-route to emergency back-up._

The vast silver starship rippled back into normal space-time with pinpoint accuracy about the crumbling world below. A pair of deep-space scanners ran over every visible quarter-mile of land available and brought up a real-time holograph over the command table. Captain William Weasley examined the information with a critical eye as he assessed the situation, already spotting the places where the previous ships had gone down.

_Fools,_ he thought uncharitably, features drawn taut with apprehension and anger. _They know, absolutely _know _what can happen when ICWSC vessels are taken in by the Covenant Primes, and they still thought to slip in around everyone elses back to conduct their own ''_investigations''_!_

And yes, there their ships were, scattered apart on a momentarily stabilized cliff-face. "Magnify the downed ships and run trace scans for blood and plasma fire." Despite his mood the Captain's voice emerged smooth and even. Death was the last thing most human crews could expect if they weren't put down by the crash. The Elite Pirates and Drakons took especial pleasure in tormenting captives.

"Negative blood spill by hostile means, Captain. Spell and plasma fire are minimal. Seems these crews were taken alive by agreement of all involved."

William swore, an old oath favored by the late Auror-General Alastor Moody. _Those DOM sons of bitches,_ he added to himself, _they didn't crash here in desperation; this was a betrayal!_

After another moment he processed what, precisely, that meant for him and his crew. "EMERGENCY EVAC TO RANDOMIZED SPACE! NOW!" Desperation made his voice louder than he would have preferred in the instant, and it got the attention of everyone else nearby.

The ship-ghost had just begun to run the necessary counter-measures when they were rocked by a force of terrible strength. The whole ship leaped six feet aside and tumbled over, throwing anyone not strapped down or holding onto the rails against the floor and against each other, breaking bones, bloodying lips, and driving up tempers for those conscious enough to be angry.

* * *

><p>The Myrddins' were the first to recover from the catastrophic assault to their left flank. Scrambling off of each other and shaking loose any momentarily cobwebs, the elite wizarding squadron raced down the barracks to the armory, where the CALIBURN suits lay charging in docking bays. Harry was the first one there of course and he flicked loose the electro-magnetic runes binding the suit to the chamber, allowing it to drop down practically in his lap. He grunted and shifted his weight around to bear its sudden load and carefully lowered the multibillion galleon piece of wonder to the floor. Around him a handful of the others repeated the process.<p>

The next barrel-roll nearly threw them into each other again, but Harry had already laid a hand into the left gauntlet and thumbed the activation routines to wake up the armor and connect it back into local magnetic fields. With a soft sizzle of racing electrons, the boots and back clamped down to the floor and the gauntlet snapped into position about his hand and forearm, holding him steady through the turbulence and chaos. He hooked his other arm through an upraised knee to keep himself from smashing around. Lights flickered pitifully overhead and vanished as emergency power was routed to keep them weapons-ready. Several quiet thuds echoed throughout the entire hull from the underside to the top decks.

Harry glanced around to confirm his friends and allies were still conscious, nodded in respect to those who met his gaze with the same intention, and then thumbed the controls again to open the suit up. Still hanging upside down, he shimmied into the shifting mayhem and grunted quietly as his muscles were squeezed tightly into position. The blackened interior of the armor practically vacuum sealed itself to his flesh, insuring that even in the cold of space he would never have to worry about a leak of precious oxygen.

It was still unnerving even after twenty years to have the mask seal itself around his lips and nostrils, squeezing close to his brow and pressing up against his eyes. He fought the urge to blink and felt his vision shift accordingly the next moment, staring through the opaque visor of the suit and displaying a lovely view of the wall. He lifted his left arm and flicked his fingers idly, testing their unity with the bond. Good. Then he flicked his other fingers and brought up a display of the power level and energy tanks. Less than half-charged, he noted silently. No time to wait. Standing up and pulling against the draw of faux-gravity, Harry checked once more on his comrades and found them all half-way to the doors. As was typical, he was the last to finish up. He just had to verify everything was within full operational parameters.

Clanking along at a rough trot, Harry followed after the others and waited for the next abrupt reversal of floor-and-ceiling. The emergency lights danced sporadically and failed just before that came. He tucked down and waited for things to stop spinning and then released the gravity grasp as he pointed his head upward and uttered "_Lumos_." The artificial magical energy storage, AMES, depleted a quarter of one-tenth of one percent as it flooded the environment about the suit with bright blue light.

In the next moment he pushed to the fore of the team, as per protocol. No need to have everyone waste their store of spells if he had already so graciously volunteered to light the way.

Taking point, Harry hurried through the familiar space. He hardly needed to track the tables and lockers bolted down, stepping past them easily and gripping the door with both hands, he wedged his fingers into the slightest groove and shoved, fighting the auto-locks engaged when the ship lost main power.

A quiet squeal filled the air before the inner pistons buckled and collapsed. The split door spread wide and he hopped up, shimmying through the doorway. The other Myrddins followed his lead at a pace of two seconds lag between. Those at the very back would have a harder time seeing what lay about them, but it would also ensure a better survival odds in case of plasma fire or a catastrophic deck split, explosion, or flat out vaporization. Better to keep a slight distance and be sure that _one_ Myrddin survived to continue the good fight. Such tactics had already proven their viability in years past.

The ship failed to jump and roll over again. Most of the non-armored crew were likely dead if they weren't grievously injured and unconscious. Harry doubled-timed it toward the docking bay, ears pricked for the slightest sound of fleet-footed Covenant soldiers. What they heard instead were the sharp hisses and venting of plasma rounds chewing through metal like a laser-torch through butter.

His expression shifted into a frown. They couldn't do anything about an opposing ship until they themselves were locked and loaded, and every second they took longer than necessary meant that good men, loyal men, died. He abandoned all pretense of caution and fell into a dead sprint as they neared the docking bay.

Twice more he had to pry back doors on lock-down. Five minutes after the attack began he gripped a rail and flung himself toward the buckled floor, landed nimbly on his toes and palms, and continued toward the nearest untouched _Golden Snitch_. He favored the trusty and fleet vessel with an unseen smile and slashed his dominant hand and wrist through the prerequisite unlocking sequence. "_Alohamora,_" he ordered at the end. A flare of blue light all about the quickship resolved into a dome and started to peel away from the bottom-up, enabling quicker access to the cab.

At a touch the glass top snapped up to a forty-five degree angle and Harry leaped inside, slipping his feet through the harnesses that settled around his thighs and laying a hand to the power-panel. It read the runes inside of that section of the suit and connected the two together, his AMES supplying the _Golden Snitch_ with the necessary _oomph_ and ability to perform localized _disapparition_ jumps.

All around him the other Myrddins were doing the same. He dragged the lid closed and fired the machine up, then kicked it into action with a boost of pure aerodynamic agility - the slight wings flared and blew back any surrounding debris, the nose angled upward, and in the next second he was half-way across the docking bay, a stretch of sixty meters.

He barely had to thumb the trigger gripped between the fingers of his right hand to activate the built-in _Reductor_-class cannon, three sizzling red bolts the size of a 2x4 blowing the blast-doors clear.

The energy meter in the upper left corner of his HUD dipped three-quarters of one percent when they were through, clearing a gap more than adequate enough to squeeze the _Snitch_ through. He was out into the cold of space the next moment, keying in commands to scan the stars about him for a hundred and fifty meters and mark anything larger than a child for identification purposes.

There was only so much he could do by hand and in silence, however, and the next step, as he rotated around and looked upon the world they had come to find, required vocal commands.

"Highlight Covenant machinery and chart a path through debris and fire, both friendly and foe." The glass dome darkened a fraction as he raced forward, eyes tracking the first enemy ship in sight. His stomach roiled and tensed as he spied the DOM-emblems emblazoned across one ship beneath the regular Covenant Prime tags. _Insurrectionists,_ he thought. Someone in the DOM had betrayed them. _No time, rip them to shreds and worry about loyalties afterward._

The glass flickered as a pale white grid overlapped the interior, and all of the objects in view took on different colored highlights. Blue-black were non-factors, things too small to yield a danger or too dead to try. Yellow were intermediary risks, overly large asteroids and fuel leaks or tanks waiting to explode at the slightest spark and nudge. The other Myrddins and their ships were glowing green to denote friendlies, but the amount of bursts filling the void about them gave an almost opalescence to the sheen. Red were opposing troops deployed across the surface of their own ship, viable targets to eradicate. And in bright, glaring orange, the main Covenant dropship hovering just beyond the exosphere of the fragmented world, already turning its cannons to target him in his _Snitch._

Harry didn't need to look to see his fellow Myrddins spreading out and making their routes to the destination. Two had foregone the usual high-speed _Golden Snitch_ and settled into the crimson-red _Bludger_ instead, bulky vessels that packed ten-times as much energy-output capacity as his smaller quickship. He reclined his head toward the stars above and said only one swift, efficient message to his brethren in arms.

"Take it to them, Myrddins!" he ordered across the com-link, then ducked his head back down, leaned forward, and spiraled down to the top of their ship and the Covenant scum clinging to it with plasma torches and blades.

His left hand jerked as he keyed in the spell to the AMES and relayed it through the quickship. It gave him only a little satisfaction when he raised the shields and smashed through ten, twenty, thirty opposing soldiers at mach II, grinding their scaly hides to a dense paste as they were caught up and dragged beneath the force of the _Snitch_, ground apart between his unstoppable force and the immovable rock of the _Merlins Beard_. Pale orange blood smeared liberally across the blue shield and dripped away in the slipstream in his wake. Anything that had survived unmangled by the crush was succinctly blown apart by the thrusters.

It was, most assuredly, an effective means of killing the lower echelons.

He steered up and to the right to dodge a beam of bright orange-red light, a charge of super-energized plasma. The dense smell of ozone and rot bled across his sensors and swam into his breathing vents as the Snitch dodged the blast. He coughed hard once to clear it from the back of his throat where it hung like a poison, and in the next moment had regular o2 pumping though his nostrils again as they pulled farther away from the enemy.

Harry turned his attention back toward the largest orange glow in the vicinity and shoved down hard on the joystick to escape a much more ominous surge of the energy the Covenant Primes loved to sling about so much. This stuff made his eyes hurt even through the visor of his suit and the auto-darkened glass of the _Snitch_ it was so bright. _What in the nine levels of hell are they doing now?_ He thought as warning sirens began to shrill across the cab.

The next instant it was upon them all, like a never-ending sunset burning across the horizon of space. It filled in more diameter than should have been possible even for the Covenant, and the heat of it began to make him sweat from brow to toes. He blinked violently to clear the corners of his eyes and estimated how long he'd have survived the blast had he not already had shields raised. _Not long_, he concluded. _Not long now, either._

The stench brought on by the plasma made his stomach lock up, his tongue curl, and his breath want to dry up and die. It _felt_ and tasted like something already had. He barely clenched down on the instinctive urge to vomit and instead keyed in the command for a _disapparition _jump.

"Lo-c-ti-n?" the confirmation from the computer was garbled with static.

"_Anywhere!_" he hacked out, and belatedly added, "_far from here!_"

The heat and the smell had his vision blackening. He realized he was being cooked alive by his own sweat, the CALIBURN acting as a pressure cooker crammed inside of an oven.

The _Snitch_ wouldn't last more than another two or three seconds, and neither would he if the damned ship wouldn't just-

* * *

><p>Neville Longbottom gagged as the sea of plasma launched across the sky of stars, blotting out everything but itself. He was barely aware of Harry's <em>Snitch<em> being swallowed alive near the start. He barely had enough presence of mind to hurl the control stick in a downward spiral for the polluted world below, praying the other Myrddins had escaped. The heat was insurmountable. He began to pant for breath even as his flesh bled sweat by the deciliter, making him itchy and raw. His eyeballs dried out as his tongue shrank back in upon his own throat, and he knew then and there that he was about to die.

Then, as his vision went dark and he felt his consciousness slipping away into the great black ether, the heat relented. His ship fell, unknown to him, away from the general radius of the unending plasma and passed behind the shadows of an asteroid. Automatic safety measures, any that were still salvageable enough to register after nearly evaporating in the scorch, took over and drained his CALIBURN nearly to empty to keep his heart beating, his lungs breathing, and his brain from going catatonic.

* * *

><p><strong>A scene that might happen well down the road in Covenant Primes, according to my outlines. It could still change between writing the second chapter and such between now and then, but yeah. <strong>


	37. 37: More Naruto ala challenge response

The main problem with having put a halt to global war is figuring out what to do with the peace that floods in to fill the gap. Some have dedicated their time to restoring lost arts, rebuilding old scraps demolished in the battles, or the pursuit of knowledge and a happy life in general. Naruto Uzumaki is not one such individual, precisely. Konoha is anything but devoid of the pursuits of war even if the means to strike a country from the face of the earth has been removed. Capable shinobi and kunoichi are still alive by the hundreds, and the truly heavy-hitters fall in around a square two dozen between the five Hidden Villages, himself included toward the top of that list.

When your whole life is bred and raised on fighting, putting it all aside just doesn't come naturally even when you have no one to fight with for the foreseeable future. How do you ensure that the old tensions don't begin to stretch the air too thin between everyone?

Quite simply, you bring them altogether and let them beat the everliving tar out of each other. The kids have the Chunin Exams - today Naruto has finally struck upon a better idea based around the same system, the Kage Resolution.

_Yup, nothing wrong with having a go at the other village leaders. _His smile could have shaved iron fillings, eyebrows slanting together to form an aggressive smirk. _It's about time we finished putting aside the issues from the Fourth Shinobi World War.  
><em>

* * *

><p>"You can not be serious," Mei Terumi, the beautiful red-haired Mizukage stated in a deadpan tone. Her full lips had settled into an attractive pout, but her lone visible eye was on guard and alert, and he could all but see her molding her chakra in concern.<p>

Naruto nodded his head once quite firmly.

"Listen, I have nothing against the tentative peace we've finally established between our nations. Its exactly what the Shodai and the other first Kages' met together all those decades ago to hash out. But," he paused as a roar of lightning burst over their heads, louder than anything heard in several months, and the resultant blast as it struck the ground outside of the building. All eyes turned to the Raikage, who only shrugged.

"I'll take you all on quite happily, brat. But what do we gain by this '_Kage Resolution_' you're proposing?"

Naruto did not answer. His eyes tracked a figure slinking out of the shadows behind the Raikage's chair, having recognized the sound of _Kirin_ from half a mile out, and the dark skinned shinobi flicked out his remaining arm on instinct, deflecting aside the quietly chirping blade of lightning chakra that lunged toward his neck between one moment and the next. Sasuke flipped in mid-air to land in a crouch against the wall, seemingly unruffled by the failed attack.

"Really? An assassination attempt, and you went with _lightning_ affinity for it? I had you pegged as bold, not stupid, boy."

Naruto leaned back in his chair with that pointed smile showing his teeth again. "Hey, don't blame me. Sasuke runs his own village these days as the Otokage. I only offered him an invitation so he wouldn't murder the Konoha Council while we were gathered here."

Burning red eyes narrowed in on him as the youngest living Uchiha member dropped to the floor and marched around to take the only empty chair available, next to Gaara. The same resentment represented in the glare was still glowing as healthily now as it had been when Konoha voted ten-to-one in favor of another blonde Hokage when Tsunade retired.

"As I was saying, we all have some left over tensions that we need to get out of our systems." His head reclined toward Sasuke. "And not just the six of us gathered here, but our ANBU Captains and top Jounin and anyone else with enough power to represent a genuine threat if they happened to get lucky. And if that isn't reward enough, then whoever wins is enacted as the current _Kami_kage and measures out the mission count and finances for the rest of the villages for a period of, oh, say six months. Just enough time to lick our wounds and go at it again at the next Kage Resolution."

A broke out in wild laughter. Mei looked at them all disdainfully, while Gaara wore a carefully calculated neutrality. The Tsuchikage waited for A to settle down before chipping in at last.

"Pah, what hope would you kids have against my Kekkei tota?" He asked, leaning his arms upon the table. "Not to mention how the Daimyō would react to this little scheme of yours." Despite his tone, the old man broke out in a grin as well.

"Ah yes, that." Naruto dug into his father's coat and withdrew five plain looking scrolls. He flipped one toward each of the other main village leaders and shrugged goodnaturedly toward Sasuke. "Until you get approval for a new country lord..." he trailed off apologetically and slit the seal on the front of his own scroll with his thumb nail, and so missed the look directed at him from the Otokage.

Contained inside of the scroll was a message of approval from the Fire Daimyō, fully endorsing a tournament between village-heads and their supporting staff. Signed at the bottom were the signatures of the other elemental country lords.

"How did you get them to agree to this?" Mei demanded, sitting even more tautly now than she had been minutes ago.

"Bribery in part, a thirty percent cut of the profits split five ways between the lot of them, and an agreement not to allow Orochimaru access to any of the materials to perform the Edo Tensei and pull the Bijuu back into reality."

A moment of deathly quiet hung in the air after his words.

Gaara got it first. "You tricked them. The Shinju devoured the Bijuu before it was vanquished. They weren't killed as we are killed and can not be brought to life again with the Impure World Resurrection technique."

A momentary grimace marred Naruto's features and put down his good mood. _Kurama deserved better than he got at the end._

Exhaling slowly, he nodded. "What the Daimyō don't know won't hurt us. And Orochimaru is making amends toward his crimes under the watchful eye of Tsunade. Consider what I'm proposing," he pushed his chair back and walked over to the front door, pausing to turn his head over one shoulder. "We _need_ something to make up for the lack of war our countries have focused upon for generations now. A peaceful agreement to pummel each other and leave the rest of the villages out of it should suffice at our level, the Chunin Exams for the lowest nin, and I'm sure we can come up with something to appease the rest short of another declaration of war."

* * *

><p>He was halfway down the mountain when Sasuke appeared at his shoulder without a sound. "We need to talk."<p>

Naruto stopped walking and turned to face his old friend-turned-rival-slash-teammate. "You're more than welcome to join in on Konoha's side of things if you want to, Sasuke. I know it hasn't been easy rebuilding the Sound without the support of a country lord."

The youngest Uchiha snorted, breaking the momentary tension hanging between them as the nearest thing to a laugh. But it returned as soon as they locked gazes again the next moment, the burning glare of red and black meeting suddenly weary blue.

"I have no intention to ally myself to Konoha, Naruto. I've been spurned twice too many times in my efforts to forgive and forget. Oto will stand alone in this Kage Resolution whether the others agree or not." Chakra began to suffuse the air as he gathered the strength for a second _Kirin_, the naturally stormy sky overhead already replenishing what had been lost to the first such strike.

"I came here to tell you that I'm through offering an olive branch. If the rest of the nations of this world need an excuse to war again in a few years, look to Otogakure to soothe your troubles. I'll be waiting, rebuilding my strength. I've seen the heights of the Sharingan, and I intend to claim them for myself one day soon."

Before the former-jinchuriki could do or say anything to convince the Otokage otherwise, Sasuke had launched the _Kirin_ and ascended into the sky in a flash of lightning and noise. In seconds there was nothing more than a faint blue spec upon the horizon.

"Kami dammit."

* * *

><p><strong>A response to the Naruto TGYH thread at DLP. I like parts of it and others not so much, but putting it up here might help to remind me to continue with the overall concept.<strong>


	38. 38: Down the road in Servants of Duty?

When the dawn arose cold and pitiless that morning, not so much as a smoking crater was left behind to mark where the once mighty roots of the godtree, Yggdrasil, had rested. Bulging cables that had once ensconced its vast network across every domain, enabling its greatest warriors access near and far, had been ripped open and vaporized, leaving not even ashes in the wake to reconstitute into zeroes and ones. With each cable that had been disconnected from its dock, a doorway had gone dim and light-less and been left behind as the sole surviving features of the formerly pristine crystal hall. A perfect circle of eight frames silent and empty were all that remained, now. The panes across the floor were long-since razed to dust.

Thus was the sight that greeted Ulforce V-dramon, the fleetest of their lot to arrive on sight long days after the fatal blow. Partitions forced upon him by heavy combat saw his armor cracked and flawed for the first time in living memory. Even _his_ potent overwrite sequence could not overcome the sheer firepower unleashed by the Devas. He did not bleed, nevertheless, even where a hole passed straight through his chest and emerged out his back. He did not have enough spare data _to_ bleed away any more. For the first time since he had willingly forgotten the human tamer and the world he had first been born to, Ulforce V-dramon felt at loss as his glassy eyes took in the ravaged landscape and the message meant by the standing doors.

He collapsed to his knees before the one that should have brought him _home_, to this exact spot, had he reacted in time. Had he not forsaken the central chamber of the one god like the rest of his brethren in arms to guide the world more actively away from darkness.

His great wings shuddered, useless. One blurred along the edges before abruptly digitizing into binary code again, flashing into the ether as his body gave up the effort to support it. The other faltered a moment longer. They had failed him in his greatest hour of need - what good would they be in this world now? Even that much active thought left his vision dimming, his breath heaving harder. The overwhelming need to come to Yggdrasil's aide had come too late for him to intervene from a continent away.

The others came, one by one, across the span of a week, a fortnight, a month. Dukemon trekked out of the night with his shield splintered and his lance awry, bent out of shape. His crest hung loose upon his brow and lay over one scorched eye socket, and a single lengthy hole rippled in the breeze down most of his scarlet mantle. But the lone yellow eye visible took in the state of their hallowed chambers and the grief sank deep into his bones the same, and he fell to one knee with his head bowed in empty prayer - for forgiveness, for vengeance.

Each of the surviving Knights emerged and fell into grief at the ultimate failure of their duty to the world. Each carried the scars of vicious battle, turning all the more violent as the hours ticked away. And each of them felt the untold centuries and millennia of their years in full for the first time since they had been recruited an eon ago by the Founder.

The only ones absent were their leader-in-lieu-of-the-Alpha, Omegamon, which came as no surprise. Even now he would be fighting with all of his heart, eradicating anything that came upon him in numbers that no other Knight could endure, and Magnamon, their so-called miracle worker.

Until the day he did. No armor remained to his name, flesh crisscrossed in white-pink scars enough to outnumber the blue. The emblem carved into the flesh just beneath his belly faded away amidst all the rest of the scars, lifeless of the connection it had once burned brightly with. He looked back and forth upon the doors and his fellow Knights, and let out a single flat, humorless bark of fey laughter.

Every eye present found its way upon the dragon-man, but no voice arose to chastise him. They knew, somehow, someway, that he would be the answer. He had halted too many threats, outpaced death more grandly then any two, or three, or four Royal Knights could claim. And here he now stood, no more the enhanced-Armor II born of Yggdrasil's might. Here he, the weakest of their lot without the powers born of miracles and the will of their godtree, still lived and breathed where most of the others seemed to be halfway through death's door.

At last the echoes of his laughter died. He stood up straighter, met their gazes, and pointed upon the distant hill some ways south, some ways west. "This isn't over, not by a long shot. I met someone on my way here; he had a very compelling voice and excuse to hide behind. We parted ways not long ago."

Craniummon stirred. "Who?"

"See for yourself. They've arrived."

A black figure streaked over the landscape in vast bounds, a lump of misshapen white and blue cradled aloft above its head. The speed at which it moved far surpassed most of their speed of comprehension, so that only a faint dark shadow was outlined in the air.

But soon enough the new figure landed in the middle of the circle of doors, allowing the white-clad, crippled form of Omegamon to slump upon the soil with care. Vibrant gray eyes observed them each and all, measuring, accounting, comparing.

At last he flicked loose his blue mantle and took a knee, head inclined. "Tis been two eons, my kin, since last our eyes met. I find no honor in the hour of our need. I find no glory to be held at the call to survival. I find no reason for this threat. He has lead you well in my absence," the stranger ran a gauntlet-clad hand across Omegamon's unmoving chest, drawing away the cape that had concealed the narrow slit just above the abdomen. Quiet gasps rippled through the air.

The hand withdrew and settled upon his knee again. "Yet here we are, face to face again. I have watched from the shadows of time, tired and unmoving least I break the delicate bonds preserving my presence outside of this world. No more may I abide patience in the face of this declaration."

He rose to his feet again and the air seemed to take on a heavy haze, bending slightly away from his body. "I am your leader. I am the Lord of the Empty Seat. And by the Alpha InForce burning in my blood, I am Alphamon!"

The final words erupted from his throat at the same moment the haze spread across the entire field, striking each of the Royal Knights and binding them to his name, his being. It awoke a distant connection as of the same nature they once shared with Yggdrasil prior. It stirred to life the powers of the godtree's protection that had been siphoned away with its' death. Their blood boiled and roared anew, forcing a resurgence of live-giving strength and data coursing throughout their fractured bodies, the Alpha InForce producing a years-worth of healing in the span of a single minute. Before their very eyes wounds took on a blur, as if seen through the bottom of a clear glass, and evaporated over the course of several breaths - less and less damage remained after every breath, more truly said, the blur shrinking inward and leaving behind immaculate armor again for each Knight.

A noticeable fatigue developed across Alphamon's stature and stance when that minute was through. His armor shone less brightly and creaked with an ominous chime, head hanging downward and fingers taut upon each wrist where they lay crossed. But though his wellspring had been accessed and bled across his loyal brethren, the renewed spark within their eyes was no more brilliantly reflected than that of his own steady gaze.

Only Magnamon remained unchanged by the vast majority of the effects. He smiled in a goodnaturedly way and tilted back his head to emit that same fey laugh, high and unnatural, his battered chest rumbling. It was a sound well remembered - often had it been heard when he was acting out in a particularly delirious fashion.

His golden armor did not manifest. In its stead, a subversive crystalline glow bubbled up from beneath the innumerable scars. The few patches of azure seemed like distant continents before the sea of white light surrounding them. "What new power is this?" he breathed heartily as a change in his very genome was gradually unlocked by the ties to his long-awaited leader.

Alphamon's yellow gaze examined him critically, recognition clear. "You're evolving," he said simply. "What once you've lost may never be born again. In lieu I offer you this power to stand without."

"Evolution? Man. I never thought I'd experience that again - though if its all the same to you, I'd rather stay as I am. I've gotten quite used to this body." He smiled as he spoke, but a distant tinge of fear, of apprehension, suffused his tone.

Alphamon uncrossed his hands and flung them wide, and an array of mystic letters and digirunes erupted from the red orbs in each palm. They formed a perfect dome about both Alphamon and Magnamon, and time itself slowed to a near-stop in response.

"Would you truly remain flawed, my miracle worker? I have seen and known a further evolved species in your name, endowed with strength at weakest to match your current greatest. It is a bright future entwined in nightmares, spreading the flaw of X and unlocking a different breed wheresoever you step hereafter - yet I would have it of you nevertheless. You will never know gold again without it."

Magnamon craned his head back and closed his eyes in thought. "Are you talking about the same thing Omegamon first performed that night?"

Alphamon closed his own eyes in remembrance. "We are. He was wise enough to seal that power away after rescuing our Founder from the fledgling-godkings. Yet not so wise as to throw it away in full, or bring it forth in time before it was lost for ever with Yggdrasil's diminishing."

* * *

><p><strong>Theoretical concept for Servants of Duty. All of the Knights are sustained by their ties to Yggdrasil. With the godtree destroyed they became vulnerable to mortal blows again and, taken by surprise, were pretty heavily beaten to within an inch of their demise. Too many powerful attacks and et all, augmented by the strength of the Sovereigns.<strong>

**Thus Alphamon can finally enter the Digital World proper and interact with it at last. The time has come for his power to be known from edge to edge and to avenge the damages reaped. For anyone curious about how Omegamon lost, his blade was sundered and turned upon him.  
><strong>


	39. 39: Peverell Successor's path from 2011

_March 18th, 1944, Swiss Alps International Council of Wizardry Chambers_

"The problem with time-travel isn't the magic behind it; nor generating the oomph to overcome the natural forward motion we have come to associate toward the passage of time; it is in the knowledge that comes with knowing what has _already_ _occurred_ prior to trying to alter it," spoke the wizard wearing navy blue layered robes, a small copper and gold-in-laid badge hanging from a section of twine from the left pocket at his hip.

"We in the British _ Department_ have found certain ways around this that shall not be unveiled during this meeting, however the specific method would not and _does not_ apply to the world at large. Thus, in order to extricate an alternative the _Time Turner_ was finely crafted from the best our peoples have been capable of producing." Lifting the badge into the air the wizard presented it slowly and carefully to the others gathered before him at the ICW summit.

"Vat is it capable off?" Asked a tall, blond wizard seated closest to the podium in a smooth open robe with Durmstrang's symbol along the shoulder and breast, along with a more serious looking and sweeping white_ M_ embossed atop a red _W_ to represent his rank.

"I was about to explain that, and since you are so willing to interrupt, Professor Grindelwald, by all means come forward and see firsthand." The wizard on the podium responded with a less than friendly smile and pointed look at the foreigner.

The blond sniffed in derision and shook his head _no_.

"You may keep it. I vill vait." He answered carefully. The other wizard made a hum as if in disappointment and turned his attention back toward the rest of the people there, beginning to stride to and fro across the well worn space.

"Would anyone else care to step up where our first dear Mugwump does not?" He asked of the crowd.

Curious stares met his searching gaze for a moment but none of them showed enough interest or willingness to risk getting lost in some sort of terrible accident to respond.

"Acceptable enough, then." He answered himself and came to a halt again.

"If things go as they are expected to, I ask that you remain calm and keep your voices to yourselves. For those too easily excited please cast silencing charms upon your tables now, and regardless of what occurs _do not draw your wand_." The blue robed wizard instructed in a very firm voice.

Minute grumblings in several languages met his request and after another minute he nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Here," he brought the badge up before his face as the twine stretched accordingly, and his vision narrowed down to the small object, "we," he gripped it between his right index and middle fingers and began to concentrate intently, urging his magic to flow into the tiny device, "_go_..."

The world about him faded into ripples just as he stepped backward one full stride and released his _will_ into the badge, clenching his eyes shut at the same time.

Ten seconds later and he opened them up just as a brief ripple faded away in the space roughly one foot before him.

With a wary smile he dropped the now exhausted badge back around his hip and looked at the gathered ICW members again, keeping a firm eye at last on the blond to speak up before.

"That, my equal-minded friends, is how you succeed. Remove all ability of foreknowledge of the event from yourself before stepping backwards into the current." He stated calmly and not a little smugly, "If you can not _know _what is to happen than you _can not_ create a paradox by altering it."

Silence held out for only long enough to finish his sentence; and then questions began to bombard him after that, ranging in language and tones of disbelief to outrage at being deceived, only one or two staying silent to try and unravel the process they had just observed.

After all, it was the first time that a reasonable source of such travel had been demonstrated since the loss of the original Myrddin of Camelot over a thousand years before.

The blue robed wizard let them go on for roughly a minute before conjuring a chair to sit down in and placing his chin in his hand, gesturing with his other for them to keep going. His expression of smugness faded to one of feigned interest.

Professor Grindelwald stood up when the cacophony began to quiet. "Ve vould appreciate a continuation, Unspeakable Peverell." He intoned in a more polite voice.

Glancing over toward him Peverell nodded once. "I'm sure you would, honorable Mugwump," he responded quietly with an uncertain look behind his eyes that betrayed his dislike of the German headmaster and politician. Sitting up straighter he reached into his pocket and broke the thread holding the badge in place. "Once more I welcome one of you to come up and help demonstrate this process." He declared to the room at large.

An aging wizard with deeper gray streaks among the blond-turning-white hair and a cane clenched in his left hand stood upright, a sour expression on his gaunt features. "Mugwump Malfoy." The aged wizard declared firmly and, barely hesitating for the other wizard on the podium to nod in acceptance, he strode forward and stepped up onto it.

Rising to meet the older man the Unspeakable offered the badge. "Take the _Time Turner_ and tell us how much you would estimate the weight to be, Mugwump." He instructed neutrally.

Snatching the object without preamble Abraxas Malfoy examined the thing, finding the weight to be about the same as a pair of galleons. His eyes took in the intricate Germanic runes dotting the surface and slowly followed the passage they made along the surface.

"Well?" Demanded someone from the crowd and Abraxas turned with a sneer in his direction. "Hardly worth my time to look at let alone look like a fool for." He directed at both men.

A subtle twitch spread over his face as the Unspeakable responded. "Allow me to remove the charms making it featherlight, Mugwump Malfoy?" He requested and smiled internally at the look of suspicion that crossed the elder's face before the badge was gingerly placed back into his hands.

From within his sleeves the Unspeakable drew a black stained wand of eleven inches and incanted a series of words with it. As soon as he was finished they watched as his arm gave a sudden jerk, and he locked his elbow rigidly to keep it upright.

"Here you go, honorable Mugwump." He stated in a smooth voice that betrayed nothing of the strain he was under, turning his hand to the side so the other would have to take it into his palm instead of trying to pick it up.

Warily Abraxas held his free hand out and the badge was dropped into it.

His body collapsed a moment after, sending his hand crashing to the stone podium and pinning it there beneath the weight, and as he fell his lower jaw crashed at an angle against it as well. Everyone could hear the crack of bones shattering and the sight of several broken teeth did little to help.

"_Gerrrfff!_" he snarled in barely coherent and jumbled agony at the man just a few feet away, still sitting down calmly. Even with the other arm tugging violently it seemed as though Abraxas' hand had become one with the floor beneath it.

"How much would you estimate it to weigh now?" The Unspeakable asked as though nothing were amiss. Abraxas mouth moved awkwardly as he tried to shout something intelligible several times, and even a few of the others within the crowd spoke up for him to lend aide already.

"Alas, the situation is out of my hands. Only at the behest of another Mugwump can I overrule _this_ Mugwump's decision, and we have so few of them among us today," the Unspeakable explained in a mild tone. "What say you, Professor Grindelwald? Shall we remove Mugwump Malfoy from his delicate situation or allow him to continue learning the price of arrogance and foolishness?" He asked.

Grindelwald stood up and approached the podium. His eyebrows met as he examined the situation and the steady drip of blood running off of the pinned mans palm. "Vhere are you going vith this, Unspeakable Peverell?" He asked curiously while internally remaining satisfied that his caution had been well justified.

"Ladies and gentlemen, how well do you know of the Malfoy line? I'm sure you've met one at least once on your own streets and several within your ministries, regardless of the surname in use there. My point, as our only other Mugwump present has asked, is that they are leeches sucking off our joy and well being." The Unspeakable answered slowly.

"Abraxas Malfoy has been attempting to buy the loyalty of the _Department_ for the last ten years, which would in effect defeat the entire purpose of these meetings and see that Britain is turned against all other magical countries under oath within ICW standard." He continued, "Envoy Black will have the documentation gathered for perusal if any of you would like to verify after the meeting is concluded. In the meanwhile, the official _Time Turner_ will begin being offered for lease and examination within the next six months as we finish refining the alloys needed to forge them. Thank you for your time." He concluded, giving the crowd a bow and stepping down.

Grindelwald frowned as Abraxas stopped struggling and succumbed to shock. He stepped up onto the podium and found the small weight to be immovable, then did a double take at the message the runes spelled out.

He smiled despite himself as he brought up his wand. "Alas, mien friend. This hand vill have to be severed."

* * *

><p><em>March 18th, 1944, outcrops of Greater Britain<em>

Two hours and an international Disapparition point later saw Unspeakable Peverell climbing down a muggle water tower with practiced ease, each leather-booted step landing on the grip for it as his hands precariously slipped down the rungs above.

Above his head another round of thunder pierced the night and the voice of his assistant and watchdog on this leg of the journey appeared, one Alphard Black, disparaging everything from the method to the tone in which the elder wizard had performed his scheduled review for the ICW.

The Unspeakable ignored him. Several seconds later his feet touched the first strands of crop growing around the tall iron container, and he heard Alphard fuming as the younger man struggled to adjust to the height and uncertain thin rungs he would have to descend to catch up.

With hardly a glance up to see how he was doing the elder turned and marched off over the land in the direction of the next focused Disapparition point.

A low cry of outrage came from above and behind followed by two differing _splats_, as Alphard reappeared for the most part in the reedy grass ahead of him.

The other sections met the ground before the water tower with the _crunch_ of bone surrendering to nature's viciousness.

The Unspeakable slowed and looked down at the sandy haired half-a-wizard groaning and gushing blood. "Any other unsavory comments you would care to hand out, Envoy Black?" He asked with the usual smug expression on his face.

Alphard could not answer, so he shook his head no. "Very wise of you. It is fortunate that our interest in splinching and it's many various methods of usefulness has risen in recent years."

And with his lesson inflicted on the youth, the Unspeakable drew his wand again and flicked it with a nonverbal command.

Both limb and body met together again in mid-air as dirtied blood slowly floated up in a rivulet of droplets, spinning around and dislodging grains of soil like miniature planets splitting off moons.

"I doubt this will feel nor taste pleasant," he warned, and with another silent instruction the tip of his wand began to glow from pale yellow to a bright cherry red as Alphard was held in place and than surgically sewn back together with a needle of flame.

When he opened his mouth to scream the droplets rushed down it and slid back into the walls of his intestines a short trip later. "There we are. The scars will fade once you take the proper potion, but until that point they should serve as a physical reminder of why learning how to Apparate no matter where or what situation you are in is critical." Peverell stated seriously a minute later.

Alphard grimaced through the pain. He honestly should have known better by now.

* * *

><p>"You're a disgrace to us all." The man in charge of the assignment of rank and roll within the British Wizarding World, the latest successor to the title of Myrddin, and one of the oldest still living pure bloods after the Blacks, Harfang Longbottom spoke in a tone of extreme distaste as his brown eyes took in the report in one hand.<p>

Unspeakable Peverell and Envoy Black stood before his oaken table in varying degrees of silence, the former at ease and the later weary and concerned.

"Do you have any concept of what we will have to do to appease the Malfoy heir's now? Abraxas will be in Saint Mungos for _years_ to erase the damages his family is claiming he suffered at your hands!" Harfang continued.

"And _you_, where in the blazes _were you_ when he was gallivanting about like a fool? You were given that title and position to keep him on a shorter leash!" He directed at Alphard despite the young adult's detailed injury report also in hand.

Alphard weathered the brunt of his criticisms until Unspeakable Peverell stepped forward and pushed him out into the corridor again, sealing the door shut. Harfang's lips met in a thin grimace as he recognized the signs of a long headache approaching.

"With due respect,_ Myrddin Harfang_, former-Mugwump Malfoy has been trying to pocket our work for a decade now. It only seemed fitting to remind him of his place in our worlds hierarchy- a peasant." His tone was once more one of calmness with no hint of superiority in it.

Harfang soured further. "Don't you dare bring your lineage into this!" He began in a dangerously flat tone.

The wizard across from his raised one eyebrow slowly. "I had no intention of doing so, but now that you've brought it up, I suppose I will," he countered with a sudden seriousness.

"You and I are both aware of the _potential _measurements taken every year of the seven years Hogwarts students are taught. My family has remained untouched, almost alone save the rare genius through _eight hundred_ _years _of generations. Can you tell me why nearly no other family has come close?" he asked.

Harfang looked like he had swallowed a toad. "I've no bloody clue and you fucking know it." He answered venomously.

"_Precisely_. And yet instead of taking command of this world we remain silent, gladly taking up lesser positions than we could so that all wizards stand equal. The same reason all knowledge is shared at the ICW meetings. So, if you would, Myrddin Harfang, excuse me when I see fit to execute my role as a barer of greater blood and magic therein to demonstrate a particular lesson to the unenlightened fools."

Harfang had no answer for that. He had tried firing the man across from him twice in the past and found that it only encouraged him. Three years in Azkaban saw renovation after renovation and a bill to the government worth eleven thousand galleons; and how could he deny it when the security improvements were undeniably better?

No, in some ways he found it best not to challenge the Unspeakable directly but to try and influence him subtly. The position of Envoy was meant to help in that goal and only pushed the younger wizard to further odds to defy them. Taxing his paygrade was futile; he was _paying_ to retain his title and job and all it did was increase Peverell's amusement. Inconveniencing the Myrddin seemed to have become a goal he was meeting with aplomb.

"Just go. Your next duty is waiting in your folder already." Harfang ordered warily.

"Yes, Myrddin." Giving another bow Unspekable Peverell departed the office and retreated to his own resting office here.

* * *

><p><em>March 19th, 1944, Head Council of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain.<em>

Alphard blearily cleared the sleep from his eyes as he looked over the numerable scrolls on his pitiful desk outside of Unspeakable Peverell's personal chambers, a niche in the wall stretched a good twenty feet long but only four across.

He could barely turn without touching each wall and the amusement in the elder wizard's eyes every time he passed the space was not missed by Alphard.

_"What happened to equality among all wizards?" _He had asked one day.

_"You have to earn anything of true value, Envoy Black. Never assume otherwise no matter what my personal stance on the matter is. I won't give you any more than I would any other staff member of British soil baring your same rank."_ Had been the surprisingly serious answer.

Alphard hadn't liked that answer very much at all, however. His attempts to expand the niche failed time after time as his spells succumbed to the original incantations cast by the other wizard.

Thus he became used to the cramped location and resigned himself to a long and uncomfortable stay so long as the Myrddin saw fit to keep a shadow assigned to the resident Peverell-heir.

Shaking off the old memories and returning to the present Alphard traced the family tree on the scroll before him yet again, following the seemingly impossible but accurate list of Peverell after Peverell branch with no other known wizarding family meeting together with it save for the Dumbledore's six centuries back.

While every other other wizarding line crossed over at least once with their fellows the Peverells were as secluded as if a channel of impassable water separated them from the rest of British wizarding society.

He was brought out of his thoughts on the matter when a small paper-folded crane crept down the hall and pecked at his ankle irritably. He reached down and scooped it up before the foul invention could turn mad as it was oft to do when ignored.

'We have a meeting with the Siberians in ten minutes, Envoy Black.' He read after unfolding it and scowled at the limited time-frame to work with.

* * *

><p><em>March 19th, 1944, Baring Plains of Siberia<em>

"I'm sorry to hear your people have receded from the ICW, Professor Ivanko. Are you confident that no one else will take advantage of this situation in the meanwhile? Not to mention the loss of updates among our societies." Unspeakable Peverell said in a sincere tone.

A shorter wizard in a bearskin overcoat and cap nodded grimly as he processed the translation through the bubble surrounding the lot of them. "Yes, our leader seems un-ratcheted in recent decisions. But little of interest passes these days, yes?" He agreed with resignation in his voice.

"Actually, _no_. We've started making strong advancements in the last three years since Siberia attended the 1941 ICW meeting." The Unspeakable answered honestly.

"Yes? Is good then, but what advancements?" He questioned. Envoy Black interjected before the Unspeakable could respond.

"I'm sorry, but you are no longer privileged enough to hear of these things. If your country reconsidered and requested permission to join again we would gladly update you on the modern day progressions." He said evenly and the Siberian wizard's eyebrows raised, looking back and forth curiously.

"Yes? Apprentice wizard for your leader position?" He questioned in a change of subject.

"Not quite, but close enough regardless. Mention that the subject of time no longer holds us back as it once did and we shall wait for an answer- if we do not receive one in three days from today than I hope you have a good life, Professor Ivanko. If we _do_, than welcome back." Peverell responded.

Professor Ivanko nodded without answering. He let out a sigh when his eyes picked up the increased rate of snow outside the pitiful shelter they had met under, and he called up another warming charm before trotting outside of the communication bubble and began journeying over the anti-Disapparition fields.

"What now?" Alphard asked. Unspeakable Peverell stepped out of the bubble and began trotting at a light pace in the other direction instead of verbally answering. Alphard sighed and followed.

* * *

><p>Two nights after meeting with the Siberian assistant to the Marquee of Magic and the response to Unspeakable Peverell and Envoy Black's invitation arrived rather noisily.<p>

The hailstorm of iron pellets broke through the outer layer of the large enchanted tent and crashed into the six foot high brick-and-mortar circular barricade only a few feet within.

Alphard stirred at the first few echoes and soon slipped off his spare desk to check on the continual _crackling_ sound coming from the entrance to this place, widely regarded as an expansive dungeon all to its own.

What he saw through the one-way re-enforced mirror left him speechless for a long minute.

"Some answer." Unspeakable Peverell stated in a tone of disappointment. "I suppose their leader truly is a fool if his first choice of action is leading his underdeveloped and ill-prepared country to war," he said.

Alphard managed to find his voice and looked at him askance. "How do you know his intention is war?" He asked cautiously.

As expected the elder wizard shrugged without looking at him. "Attempted assassination of two of England's highest peoples during a political meeting sound like something a sane and logical man would choose to do?" Peverell countered, and Alphard shook his head.

"So how long-" He began and was cut off immediately.

"As long as they have weaponry to assault us with. Kinetic energy drives the runes to charge higher, and the more the runes gather the greater the warding-wall will endure. Now shut up a minute as we're about to have a visitor." With that said he focused on the shredded sheets leading outside.

_Arsehole._ Grimacing at the dismissal Alphard drew his wand and looked through as well when the rounds stopped coming altogether.

A clear voice spoke in the native Russian and the mist outside vanished along with the smoke of the muggle weaponry in use to that moment, allowing both wizards to take in the sight of the very man they had spoken to earlier that week.

Professor Larson Ivanko fired off a single thick blue spell into the tent and dropped down and away from the entrance, a small half dome of concentric silver energy forming around his body just before the explosion occurred and released a backlash of wind and flame toward him.

The outside of the tent caught aflame and burned to ashes almost instantly until they reached the point where the wall still stood, multiple spider-webbing cracks spanning the surface of the mirror but otherwise unharmed as the shield runes swallowed the lions share of the energy.

Unspeakable Peverell kicked out the ruined mirror before catching the heavy mercury in a levitation charm. "Stay put for a time, Envoy Black, unless you happen to know a suitable sixth-tier shielding spell as our not-so-friend over there used." He told the younger wizard.

Alphard merely nodded mutely, still too stunned that they had survived with no injuries to vocalize his response.

* * *

><p>Chapter Two<p>

* * *

><p><em>September 24th, 1937, Greater Azkaban<em>

His first day in the western incarnation of the famous wizarding prison did not diminish Peverell's smile, though it certainly grew more weary and lax around the edges when he thought no one else was looking.

Ten hours of hand-carving ancient Wizengamot edicts with the rest of the prisoners on the second level left a cramp in his wrist that ran straight up to the elbow, and each motion that came from that arm put another momentary twinge of pain in his look of well being.

He had few doubts that Myrddin Harfang intended to keep him here for the full sentence of a year, another of the elder man's misguided attempts to imbue some degree of restraint. _If he only knew_!

* * *

><p>The next day featured a renewal of the previous activities, only now Peverell was forced to use his right hand. Two hours in and during the first of the three ten-minute breaks allotted saw him introduced to the rest of the lightest-convicted criminals.<p>

"-_-so_ I finished replacing the last chip and went all in, only I knew my cards were shite and his weren't, so of course he won and I had to drop outta the match." A relatively young wizard with outrageous red hair smiled as his story unfolded.

"I was half way outta the doors when my coat pockets stopped moving forward with me- the jacket wasn't exactly in top shape or I wouldn't have met their requirements for the tournament, but the _sound_ was just hideous as all the coins hit the dragon skin floor and I had about two seco-"

"**Alright, rest is over!**" Boomed over his last few words from the_ sonorous_ in effect over the guard's throat.

"Damn, that was nearly at the best part; Peruvian Darkness powder!" Shrugging as he pushed off his knees and angled back toward the nearest slab of granite, the red haired man looked back and offered his name.

"Ignatius Prewett. Look me up some day, I'll be done in two years if things go well." He told the others.

Peverell nodded in return. "Gideon Peverell," he returned as they began to scatter back toward their original positions.

"Well I'll be-" Once more Ignatius was cut short by another guard hollering at them to shut up and start scraping. He just smiled and turned back to work, filing that detail away for another time.

* * *

><p>Time passed easily despite the grueling days. Peverell's name never spread, and that alone confirmed his assessment of Ignatius Prewett as a mostly reliable, if somewhat too eager to succeed, man. That he hadn't sold the name for any favor was useful.<p>

"Peruvian Darkness powder?" He inquired the next time they met, roughly two weeks later after the usual rotation of cells.

Ignatius smiled brightly. "Wouldna believe how I gotta hold of it. Had to sell an old family heirloom to build up enough knuts- you ever try to raise forty-eight thousand knuts, plain? No galleons, no silver nor golda any sort, just basic _knuts_? Took me half the year." He stated in a tone at contrast with his message.

"So I get up enough knut's to satisfy this sheik guy and it turns out he just wants a giant freakin' throne of bronze, but the charms on the knut's won't let it melt at anything this side of a dragons snarl, and I'm thinkin' to myself; do I tell him they're shite for his goal, or do I just stay silent and earn myself the powder?" Ignatius paused to let the information sink in, and sort-of grimaced before continuing.

"Well, I tell him. I mean, it's forty-eight thousand knut's! Just string some twine through that hole in the center or something. No, the guy ain't happy with that answer, he wants a throne of pure metal and nothin' set up to it- but I want that damn powder, I mean _forty-eight thousand knut's_, man, _knut's_! So I compromise. I tell him he can have his bloody throne if he gives me a few days to scavenge up a good enough curse-breaker."

Peverell leaned back against his cell wall in thought. "You couldn't possibly find one in three days. The charm work is overseen by.. ah." He said after a short pause, and Ignatius nodded knowingly.

"Aye, I go see my uncle Sirius Black, who happens to slip a bit of his magic in as a fail-safe should someone start tampering with the coins, triggers an old alarm spell straight to his front door. So I know this sheik guy is never gonna get his throne of bronze unless me and my uncle work out a side deal in the process." Shrugging, he let out a wispy sigh.

"He wants half up front and I tell him, _are you daft_? We'll never get a throne this guy'll sit in if you take _half_ the knut's away! And he tells me it'll work just fine if we weave in a few _engorgios_ during the melting process, tells me the effect won't wear off until we're back in good ol' sun-shinin' England." His grimace remained in place.

"So I give up half my hard earned money and he takes the lotta it down to his basement cellar, where I find he has a list of the enchantments on a hand writ scroll, and off in a corner is the ugliest lookin' cauldron I've ever laid eyes on- then _or_ now. He tells me to stay back and activates some wards over the whole thing after dumpin' the knut's in, and I'm thinkin' to myself, what the hell is he doing now?"

"Turns out the old codger was more daft then I had thought, cause he gives it a bit of old fashioned hell flame; Can't thinka what the usual name is, but its close enough to burn the scales straight off a Horntail's hide! So we watch it wreck havoc over this hideous cauldron and soon enough bounces around enough off the wards to land inside. Turns out he wasn't entirely loose in the head, had some kinda runes all along- in _and_ outside to trap the lotta them once they slipped in."

"So I'm watching my hard earned metal just melt down into a think ooze beneath some of the fiercest lookin' snappin' turtles this side of Australia, and after a time he forces the curse back under his control- and has a damn heart attack from the effort! Here I am, making _two_ black-market deals and times a tickin' on the first, and my bleedin' Uncle kicks it there and then." Dropping back onto his bed, Ignatius paused once again to let his voice rest from the near continuous tale.

Peverell processed the majority of it as it was told and his smile returned once again. "Only he wasn't dead. You cast a stasis charm to keep him as he was, finished hastily brewing the throne yourself and portkeyed his still-warm body to our front doors." He answered the unfinished details.

Ignatius blinked and looked up at him again in surprise. "How'd you know that? I thought you buggers were still trying to piece together what- that sonna bitch. He's still alive?" He asked somewhat hopefully.

"Until last month. I'm afraid he caught Dragonpox and his already taxed body couldn't endure." Peverell answered. "Though he never explicitly told us your name, not even after we raided his mansion."

"Too bad, that. Now I feel like I owe him- though, I take it the life debt kept his mouth quiet enough?" Ignatius asked.

"That and the magically binding contract he already had in place on himself. Go on, what happened with the knuts?" Peverell queried.

"Ah, yeah. So I managed to get the lotta them ready and poured out into a nice series of vials he already had in stock, and I cork 'em and think, now he's got the whole forty-eight thousand, but does the ruddy bugger _deserve_ the whole forty-eight thousand? I mean, it cost my uncle his life and a lot more as it turns out. So I say, no, this Peruvian prince _does not_ deserve that much, and I'm all set to take a nice fee from it- and then I realize I don't know how much each vial has, and I can't even recast 'em as they were even if I tried with his scroll." Ignatius explained further, stifling a yawn in the process.

"So, without any idea what to do now, I just swallow the lump in my throat at this ruddy cost and Disapparate to the nearest point, then across the straits out to Peru. I told him to heat the ruddy vials with that hell flame again and then he could cast it as he wanted, and he reluctantly exchanged them for a hefty sum of the powder since he had no clue what exact type of fire I had just described." Smiling somewhat flatly Ignatius sighed again.

"So now I've got the powder and I know I can afford the entrance fee for this muggle card game tournament some of the lesser wizarding families had picked up and implemented, and I've been hearing the reward for the higher ups is more than enough to get back that heirloom I had sold earlier with a nice sum to boot; but I'm not gonna take the chance that I'd _lose_, I mean its already running late and the guy I sold it to isn't exactly known for his patience."

As Ignatius moved past the initial acquisition of the powder his mood steadily improved again, once more laughing and smiling throughout the retelling with more and truer mirth to his tone.

"So I've got a pair of jacks and after my due diligence of studyin' know that's a good hand to have, and I'm thinking is this worth risking my chips for or is it better to fold and hold out for something higher, and then the next card is placed and my mind's made up right then and there; it's a bloody jack!" He said with a somewhat distant look, picturing the details clearly.

"At the time the prize so far was already worth enough to get my heirloom and a tidy sum at all the same, so I go ahead and start slippin' the marked chips in one atta time every few rounds as I confirm I'm still in. Next guy across from me folds and so does the one after him, bringing it down to just me and the dark lookin' fellow across from him..." He recalled slowly.

"He folds all of a sudden and the sound of footsteps came down the stairway toward the table, and you might notta recognized him, Gideon, but I did. Its what made me hurry up and count my blessins' that I had that powder on hand; Abraxas Malfoy, the sonna bitch himself. It was his gold we were playin' on and he had come down to see who was interested in it." Ignatius let out a bright laugh.

"Shoulda seen his face cave in at who was in the lead. My dad and old Abraxas had a falling out in Hogwarts sixth year, some kinda secret wager between the two of them. So he walks in, his expression soured worse than usual, and he kicks the guy who just folded right outta the game and takes his place. Lemme tell you, Gideon, those were the most exciting and terrifying forty minutes of my life so far." He said somewhat seriously.

"I trounced the old man at least twice and only his pride kept from booting me from the table that night, though house rules barring magic probably are the only reasons I'm here talkin' to you. So times runnin' thin, my nerves are all but shot, and I finally gamble on a bad hand and let his ego take over; he won it all, it being the fakes." Ignatius shook his head at himself, unable to restrain his sigh.

"So I collect the tidy third place gold in its fancy purple bag and start hightailing it up the stairs and out the tavern in Knockturn when my pockets came to an abrupt halt. All the stolen coins had his ruddy charms in place so nothing like I had been attempting would go through, but the thing is it wasn't just the coins that got scattered." Finally getting back to the point where the guard had interrupted them last time, Ignatius yawned tiredly.

"But I think'll turn in for the night, Gid. Don't wanna give away the whole story for free; maybe you've got a good one to exchange my ending for, yeah?" He asked with a wide grin.

Peverell peered at him closely for a few seconds. "All that lead up and now you want me to buy the ending," he repeated as if in disbelief. Ignatius didn't answer but nodded once, waiting to see where this would go.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Tell me, in all your no doubt many trades, have you ever come across the name of Nicholas Flamel... ?"

* * *

><p>They met again in the work yard the following morning. "I still don't buy that." Ignatius told him quietly.<p>

Peverell shrugged. "Neither do I, but you desired a story and it is one few of our kind retell, even in legend," he responded, carving the first angles for Edict 92, the statute of secrecy.

"But have some food for thought, my companion." He added after a few moments. "The Dementors fled this place for a reason, and no one has ever known why. The melted slag where the original archway once rested is only one clue to the greater mystery of the tale." He flicked his eyes off to a corner far ahead on the flat and barren strip of rock and Ignatius followed his gaze.

A section of obsidian wall faded as the _notice-me-not_ charm ceased functioning against them, and a heavily melted stone gate still stood in place behind it. Lining the ground around the base in the form of a pentagram rested a series of cloths that swayed without a breeze.

"What the hell is that?" Ignatius asked him carefully.

"The second path _elsewhere_. Nicholas Flamel's work to keep them warded from our realm," Peverell suggested. "Whatever it truly is, someone thought it wise to obscure from normal sight."

Ignatius had no answer for that. He looked back to the stone before him and picked up from yesterdays carving.

_I can confirm for the two of them that the effort is still holding, though next time Aberforth can look into it for himself. I don't intend to spend any more time here than needed and one stay in Azkaban is more than enough_, Peverell thought.

* * *

><p><em>March 19th, 1944, Baring Plains of Siberia<em>

Peverell brought his wand through the air in one quick swipe and the mirror soared in front of his body to soak up the hail of bullets that the other Siberian men with the Professor started firing at him, striding over the distance between them quickly yet carefully.

The downed wizard shook his head slowly and looked up from his still present shield to see that one of the men he had been ordered to murder was completely unaffected by the effort, and a look of regret for the way this was going crossed his features. He stabbed his wand into the ground and shouted something in further Russian, and the six men with him stopped and raised shields in tandem. An instant later and the ground sizzled with the rush of energy being conducted through it rapidly, and a bolt of lightning erupted from the left to strike at the enemy wizard.

It struck him in the chest and erupted out of the right shoulder toward the sky, entry and exit completed in only a pair of seconds.

Peverell looked down at the wound in disdain before the mirror crashed to the snow and his body followed suit atop it, both shattering into over a thousand fragments.

It was a sight Alphard would recall in days and years to come as the moment he started recognizing the degree of skill the Peverell family contained carefully hidden away from sight.

For Professor Ivanko, it was the first in a series of events on that day that he would never forget.

The shards melted down into liquid and blended together into a solid whole again, the mirror restored and floating back into the air as Unspeakable Peverell's image appeared within the surface. He smiled at the seven opposing men and thrust his arms out to the side with a silent invocation... and the world was torn asunder beneath his will as the weight of air became the same as gold, crushing them beneath their own shields. After a minute the twitching and silent choking petered off, and Peverell emerged from within the mirror to admire his handiwork.

"_What do you_ ... _What man can make us immobile_?" Professor Ivanko gasped in his native tongue from beneath his folding shield. Peverell finished it off with a simple banishing spell and reached down to wrap a hand within the Siberian wizard's overcoat.

"_I am death in the mortal flesh of those who would oppose us, my friend,_" the Unspeakable answered seriously in the same tongue. The other man's eyes showed his surprise at the response in his native language more so than the message it conveyed. He relinquished his hold over the ash wand.

"Wise move." Stepping back Peverell slid his hand down to the other wizards left and yanked him up to his feet. "_Come on, let's meet your Marquee personally and discuss his decision to commit political suicide_."

The Professor grimaced and gestured weakly at his men. Peverell shrugged and hauled him back toward the tent where Envoy Black was still watching.

* * *

><p>"We were under orders of Marquee Alexei, he is ill of late. Loose of opinion, half-asleep and weary." Professor Ivanko explained slowly to the British men across from him.<p>

A small tablet and self-renewing-quill copied his words down for testimony in the time ahead.

"When did he start exhibiting those signs?" Peverell asked.

"Ah, year and half ago, yes. Tiredness appeared more firmly after that." Ivanko answered somewhat warily. He may have been defeated but he did not want to commit treason against his people.

"Did he have any strange encounters?" Envoy Black interrupted the conversation. The Siberian wizard turned to face him and frowned.

"No, no encounters. Too difficult, he send us orders through Patronus charm." He answered. Peverell leaned forward across the small black table and rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together beneath his chin.

"So the Marquee won't even speak with his second-in-command in person. He relies on his magic to get the job done- despite the fact that, according to you, he is ill and weary." The Unspeakable stated seriously.

Professor Ivanko grimaced. "Yes, his voice is authentic. Magical signature weak but able, words slurring as if still in dream. But he is Marquee, and we must obey." He responded equally seriously.

"Right. Fortunately for you and your men, his term is officially over the moment he can be deemed unsuitable to command any further. And I can assure you, Professor Ivanko, that he has ceased functioning of his own free will." Peverell answered and stood up.

"What are you doing? How do you know this?" The Siberian asked. Peverell remained silent for a time and then reached into the same pocket as his Time Turner had been attached to only a day or two before. He drew out a small tied up scroll, placed his wand tip to the seal on the back, and smiled when the unlocking spell released with an automatic click.

"Because I happen to take a few precautions. In two hours the three of us plus your men will be storming the Koryaksky volcano base of your council, on _your authority_, future-Marquee Jarson." Unspeakable Peverell answered him.

* * *

><p><em>March 19th, 1944, Koryaksky Council of Siberia<em>

A volcano as the stronghold for a government to take residence in may seem insane to some, but Unspeakable Peverell had to admire the audacity in it; it provided more than enough heat in such a frigid domain and that aside, the thermal energy being captured and utilized fully could easily power everything that they required.

That said, it was a miracle they hadn't been exterminated decades ago. It would almost be like touching up Azkaban, only he had no one to insult and these people would never be able to afford the cost.

Every available resource as far as he could tell was spent on redirecting the majority of the geothermal energy _away_ so that it wouldn't come in their direction during the semi-annual spew of magma caused by so much magic being concentrated there.

In short, it was no wonder their Marquee was mad. Killing the man simply wasn't justifiable.

The instructions left behind by himself and sent back in time explained what they had to do to avoid the more serious traps. Envoy Black could hardly believe the reasoning behind it and he happened to know what the little scroll was capable of.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: And here it is, the long lost continuation of Peverell Successor. I've got more in the vein of the first chapter already posted that would have lead up to this, gradually creeping through the centuries and featuring different members of the Peverell family. Most of it revolved around one or the other going to Harry for aide via the Resurrection Stone, seeking help with dueling, knowledge about a certain individual, etc etc. Occasionally he would refuse to answer or go seek out another dead soul from his era that was willing to help instead. I'll see about digging those out of my archives and throwing them up here as well down the road.**

**This is definitely one of my oldest pieces of writing. I'm rather embarrassed by it, but **Oh I am Slain**'s review of Peverell Successor earlier this morning motivated me to finally let this see the light of day on FFN. **


	40. 40: A Turning of the Wheel gone awry

A turning of the Wheel gone awry; Turn I

* * *

><p>With the usual roar of thunder and unseen lightning, the vortex imploded in the middle of the sky and threw Harry rather firmly into the dirt beneath. He knocked down several rows of budding cornstalks, and nearby a sheep bleated in terror and soiled the ground beneath it.<p>

Harry exhaled and swiped at his nose, breathing shallowly through his mouth to try and get the stench away. The steam rising up from his cloths had barely begun to cool any before the vortex shuddered over his head, and with a scream of violation, the laws of physics bowed out and allowed the scarlet scaled lizard also traveling along to follow Harry through.

Ferrovax uncoiled his wings and flapped drastically in a vain attempt to avoid the same rough and tumble landing, but the gravity of the situation gave him no choice but to slam down snout-first beside his Rider. The rest of the cornstalks and two crops of melons were sacrificed to pad his reunion with terrafirma, and the sheep as much as the horses went wild with fear, amplifying the stench.

The dragon lasted a bare moment longer than Harry before coughing and gouging his nose into the dirt, breathing out plumes of smoke and wisps of flame, and Harry hastily dragged himself up and out of the way before he could be trampled. He swallowed dryly and drew out his last used wand, and with a heavy circling motion and a dire thought, he vanished the excrement into the distant realms of the world.

Another heavy swish and flick and the scent of the farm was replaced with a hearty smell of steak and wood burning stoves. Both of them sighed wearily and welcomely, breathing at ease, before the old man with the sword approached from the treeline at his side. Harry did not see him, but Ferrovax's greater point of view swung around and snorted a warning.

By that point the man shouted and swung his sword in a bizarre pattern of movement, and Harry barely got his wand up in time to stall the steel on the very tip. Before he could even try to banter wittily with the man, the sword leapt and came at him again, and again Harry hastily redirected his wand to catch the blade always on the blunt side, twisting it so that the edge leaned away from either of them.

_Would you hasten this, Harry-kinslayer-partner-of-mine?_ The dragon asked. Harry blinked at the distraction and had to hop back, then turn his shoulder into the next strike when it was clear that he could not avoid it nor block it. The tip slashed into his robe and found itself lodged in the dense material, unable to penetrate. Though painful, it had nothing on the Basilisk's fang, and Harry finally drew his wits together enough to banish the man backwards.

He held onto the sword by a single finger and slammed into the ground neutrally, neither harmed nor hindered by his abrupt shift of posture at the last moment.

"You're used to wielding that sword, alright," Harry said wryly as he shoved his other hand into his robes and through the armory within it, and drew out a single saber. After curling his fingers around the guarded hilt, the other man had already risen back to his feet, but he hesitated at last.

The swordsman looked from Harry to Ferrovax with a heavily apprehensive expression, particularly at the strange-looking saber, and as he waited so the marks across its form stood out at last in the faint moonlight; birds of some kind, three of them at the least.

For a long moment they stood there like that, until another stranger appeared like a living shadow from behind.

The expression on the old man's face flashed through abrupt fear, then immediately into a hardened determination, and a lingering exhalation of rot all worked together to alert Harry to the fact that something was very much wrong again.

He spun and struck behind himself blindly with the saber, his wand dipping and rotating as he tucked it away- if the strange sword of the strange old man could not dent him, he doubted any other sword available here would.

He was proven quite wrong with a pure black blade flashed in the moonlight and hewed through his saber as through it were melting butter before a furnace.

That sword carried on and split open his robe from elbow to shoulder, and he stumbled back with the hiss of blood lurching down the narrow slit along his biceps.

"What the hell?" he asked, quickly throwing his hilt at the thing before him and then stumbling back across the uneven ground.

The creature had skin as white as Voldemort, and exuded a sense of death with every hearty breath it rasped at him, mocking him, swatting the broken hilt aside as though it did not matter.

Pain erupted along the simple cut, fizzling around the edges as if poisoned, and Harry flicked that arm down at the unknown figure to dislodge some degree of it. At the same time that black blade rushed toward his waist, and he bit out a rough thought and a flow of magic- _blood magic_. A spear of slightly tainted looking life fluid erupted from the wound in his arm and met the blade head on, not only catching it but knocking the sword aside as he flexed his fingers.

The mock in its tone altered, taking him not only seriously, but suddenly warily.

"I don't know what the hell you are, but I don't exactly care, either," Harry stated grimly as he retreated a short ways. With a flick of his thoughts, he spoke quickly to his dragon. _Be ready to unleash a gout of flames on this thing. If it could do what no other sword in all the worlds I've traveled for ten years could do, I don't want to risk a serious blow here._ He said.

_As you say, Harry-kinslayer-partner-of-mine_, Ferrovax answered dutifully. The thing before him lurched forward in a flicker of shadowy motion and stabbed at Harry's kidneys, but he parried it again with a twist of his hand and the flow of blood. It took some degree of concentration and the efforts of his other hand to halt the flow from coming out any faster than it already was, and the skin around the cut had bubbled and scarred already, leaving shallow pits behind that he suspected might be permanent.

After a moment Harry looked beneath its hood to try and get a glimpse of its mind and figure out where this was going, but as he looked upon its face, he saw that it had no eyes at all, yet a connection was established nevertheless, as though it saw through _spirit_ rather than _body_, through the mind entirely.

He grimaced at the attempt to halt him in his tracks and scowled a moment later. "As I said, _thing_, I don't know what you are, but now I'm going to eradicate you like the last beast that posed as a human," he stated almost flatly, and ducked back.

Intense fire rushed over his neck and the shield he turned his spear of blood into, purifying the taint and poison within it, and carried on to engulf the dark warrior from the knees to the top of its hood courtesy of Ferrovax's maw. Large gouges were made in the soil and spoiled fruit within it as the dragon approached, increasing the heat as that sword was gradually reduced to slag.

Marrow and flesh melted, but the warrior surged forward and stabbed at Ferrovax through the pain and fire, and it was with a quick slash of one paw that the dragon finally dismembered the should-have-been-corpse entirely. Even then the limbs danced and bobbled upon the ground where they fell, the hand twitching and swinging the sword hilt around madly, violently.

Harry stomped down on the fingers and waited until they crunched, then ripped the hilt from its shattered grip and examined the remnants of the black steel warily. At his back, the old man exhaled deeply, drawing their attention again, and he held the bird-marked sword in a quivering hand, as if unsure which motion to flow through it into, or even if he should drop it entirely.

"Thanks for the warning." Harry said simply. The old man focused on him and blinked, and Harry raised a forestalling hand. "Your eyes. I saw them dilate, and the expression on your face, not to mention the scent from you and... whatever this thing was."

The old man just stared, then nodded warily once, and in a gruff and equally infused wary tone answered him. "What are you? I've heard of a man channeling before, but... _Light, _I've never seen anything in this manner. Burn me if I've ever seen a man overcome a Fade in stark combat." Slowly he lowered the sword, but as his eyes spread over to Ferrovax, he lifted it up again in concern.

Harry spared him a quizzical look, then sighed quietly. _Looks like this is going to be another one of those worlds_, he said to his dragon. Ferrovax snorted mildly, making the old man jump back and slip into a defensive position at the twin bursts of flame to jut out of his snout, and Harry piped up again aloud.

"You can put your sword away already. He won't harm you unless you suddenly go berserk and decide to try stabbing either of us in the back, and if he could filet this... _Fade_, as you call it, I trust that you would not survive for much longer, Mister...?" trailing off as the old man grimaced, Harry finally flicked his fingers and the blood that had hung in the air around his waist suddenly came rushing back into the cut. It felt far less pleasant, and the acidic burns where the black blade had cut him hissed again, drawing a pained grunt from him.

"Here, cauterize this for me," he said to Ferrovax. The dragon craned his neck forward and split his maw, flicking the tongue back and forth to scent the air a moment get an idea of the wind, and then as it died down, he narrowed his mouth and exhaled. A careful spire of flame licked down over the entire bicep and some of the shoulder, but all the sign Harry gave of the agony was a tighter clench upon the hilt of the black sword.

Once the dragon was done, his Rider dug his hand back into the robes and drew out his wand. A quick and biting charm later and the flayed and bubbling-anew skin around the jaggedly-white scar melted and smoothed to some degree, cooling off to almost arctic temperatures until the pain and heat faded. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief and then examined the hole in his robes.

It was almost unthinkable that they would be penetrated at last. For a lesser eon, perhaps two, he had worn them and enchanted them every now and again, enhancing and reenforcing the measures spread deep into every fiber. They had endured dragon talons, and wyvern fangs, acromantula bites, and much, much more. They had handled axes hewn of gold, swords made of mithril, daggers cut of obsidian and glass, and every aspect of the elemental grid, all without crumbling.

But here, now a simple black blade had cut them, and cut them _easily._ Here, the rules of the worlds as he knew them were _different_. Harry shook his head, irritated. _I take it this is another of Fate's intended lessons for me. She isn't satisfied with meddling in the affairs of AK, burn him for a fool, but_... he trailed off in his thoughts at the sudden interruption to the natural pace of them, and he groaned aloud.

"Not one of _those_ worlds!" he uttered heavily. The old man paced a little further back.

After a moment he shook his head. "Forget I said that. And I take it you've seen a dragon before, given that you aren't reacting like most people I've met?" He asked grimly. If he had thought the old man was wary before, he was desperately mistaken, as the old man leaped back into the treeline with a low shout. "A false Dragon?" he breathed heavily, just before vanishing altogether. Harry watched the limbs rattle and rain down leaves in slight disbelief.

"Suddenly I find myself concerned. Do you find yourself concerned?" he asked Ferrovax. His dragon shrugged one meaty shoulder and yawned, answering him after a few moments. _I find me-myself-Ferrovax growing hungry-weary-thirsty, Harry-kinslayer-partner-of-mine,_ the dragon said deliberately irritably. Harry knuckled his forehead at the growing headache chained-together words often brought when they communicated mentally, and he reached into his robes to grasp his wand again.

_Go hunt, but be more careful than ever. I don't trust that old man not to bring back a pack of hunters and arrows. _Ferrovax snorted at the thought of bowmen skewering his wings, or otherwise bringing down his mass in such a derogatory manner, as if they had the right to hunt him to begin with, but Harry continued while flapping his injured arm and the cut in his battle robes. _The runes may not hold here, Ferrovax,_ he stated. _Something about this world is most definitely different than the one you were born to, and further still from the ones I've walked before. I think it may have to do with the future, more so than merely Fate. I think that something has altered, or else changed along the way toward that point._

The dragon gave him a thoughtful glance before flapping the heavy wings, shrugging into the sky after several motions from the previous standstill. _I will be wary and careful, Harry-kinslayer-partner-of-mine._ _I know how to ascend the currents of the wind with more agility than you have yet seen of me._ Harry snorted mildly at that. In response the dragon clipped him on the other shoulder with the tail, and then rushed up into the sky.

Harry watched his dragon go and then heard the noise rushing toward him with all haste from the forest where the so-called Fade had emerged from. Thundering footsteps to put a basic Urgal to shame rushed into the clearing, screaming and roaring in clear-madness.

Trolls were the first thought that he had, staring at them, even as he backed away to have room to fight with properly, but he hastily amended that thought when he saw the forms better; some wore faces that ended in the hooked beak of an eagle, others the snarling maw of a wolf, and more further still the snout of a bear. They all possessed human-looking upper faces above these terrible animal features, marked out by dark yellow eyes, dim and wide with the minimal moon light shining down upon the clearing.

Many of them wore black cloaks, black shirts, black trousers long since shredded and rent, and black boots across their black, furry hide, and of course black mail and plate and occasionally even black caps. They all bore black blades like half-bred scimitars, jagged and curved and meant to inflict as much agony as possible with each hacking and hewing motion, or so he felt from just that hasty glance around.

They all stampeded out of the forest line and charged him down like a berserk buffalo heard, practically foaming at the mouths as they launched across the ground and trampled the so called _Fade_ into a pasty, flattened smear across the soil, the bones crunching and grinding into dust with a hideous noise, and all the worse for the remaining fruits and vegetables, which were obliterated down to rinds, if any endured that much. For a long moment he watched them come out of the treeline in that manner, all screaming in fear and terror and insanity.

Then he raised his wand and thrust it across the air before him horizontally, not even bothering with chanting aloud, and hardly even letting his thoughts focus at all beyond the intention he desired - _a ceasing of momentum _- and he felt something within him stir. It was greasy, and malignant, and it heightened his senses twice over, so that he felt a strange ecstasy suffuse his form from each of the six senses he normally observed. Then he focused one further, and splintered out through astral projection, leaving his body behind so that it would continue to function on autopilot, and so that he could observe the reaction to his efforts and first real attempt at the natural-magic-casting of this world.

What he got for his efforts was an immediate halt of the Trollish creatures, as if they had collided with a wall of solid air. He turned to look upon his body standing there, motioning back and forth with the wand still, and when the creatures thrashed and tried to turn back upon themselves or even to escape to the left and right sides away from the front, another wall of solid air materialized and slapped up against them from that direction, and this and there, so that they were trapped in the center of an ever-narrowing span of immediate space.

Harry might have felt sorry for them if they did not turn upon one another and begin ravaging like starving wildebeests, ripping open flesh and spilling blood with a stench that magnified the odoriferous scent they had already carried even higher still. Before he could return to his body, clearly not liking where it had begun to take the matter, it suddenly slowed in its motions and shuddered. The connection that Harry felt to his body began to weaken, but he had been so severely cut off from it in a previous world, many years ago, for four years straight, that he knew whatever it was could not stop him from reattaching to it in the end.

Harry reached toward his body at the same moment that it stood upright on its own, and a low gleam of malevolent light suffused his normally muddy-green eyes, as the teeth were shown in a wide and malicious grin. "What a fine body this is, so suffused with the One Power; suitable to my needs as the puppet it was always meant to be. Surely you have betrayed yourself, Lews Therin, another foolish decision to cement those you made three thousand years ago!"

Harry stopped in his tracks for a moment. He almost suspected that it was Voldemort, somehow taking possession of his own body after his own bit of Astral Projection, though the cold tone of his once-arch nemesis was lacking, as was the usual connection he could feel whenever they were near to one another. _Although, I suppose the fact that whoever it is has hijacked my body could be helping to mask their spiritual residue rather nicely, but I doubt Voldemort would mention some 'One Power', and I've no idea who Lews Therin is supposed to be,_ he thought at the speed of thought, unlimited by the normal human restrictions like the brain.

The figure possessing his body seemed to have a rather firm hold of it, given that Harry could not wrench it free just yet- in fact, it seemed as if the new host had fully integrated with it superbly. "I'd appreciate it if you people would stop talking as if I knew what you were talking about," Harry said aloud, forcing his voice to be heard in tones his ears would identify, and slowly appeared in full view the same. His body examined his spirit neutrally, taking in the features, and for a long moment the edges of his lips turned down into a frown.

"What has become of your soul, Lews Therin? Surely not even you were mad enough to rip _that_ apart when you brewed the Dragonmount ere last I caught you," the bodysnatcher stated in a voice like malice personified, harsh and angry. For a flicker of a moment, it seemed as if fire had burned beneath the pupils and filled the mouth, and Harry supposed it must have suffused the nostrils as well, while the fire was at it.

"One, I just said I don't know who a Lews Therin is, and even if I did, good on him for playing around with soul magic and mangling himself. Two, I happen to be extremely skilled in the aforementioned area of soul magic, creature. And three?" Harry paused for the dramatic effect, seeing his own facial features contort into further anger, "Three, I was separated from my body for four long years, and bled near to dry until gallons of my blood were used to try and break the world and eradicate the presence of death itself with things that do not live as we do. And I killed the first one to cross over, as I was reunited body and soul together, and forged a link that could not be shattered again."

Snapping his ethereal fingers, Harry _pulled_ at the same time that he _pushed_, and his body abruptly imploded as all of the magic within it was allowed to exist outside of his bones, his veins, his skin. Blood, guts, and gore in general covered the land about where Harry's body had been standing for roughly fifty feet, or would have, had his robe not contained the majority of it and forced the splatter to erupt out of the sleeves and out of the front instead, so that two twin-trails of narrow horror rushed out for almost a hundred feet and a larger trail left a path from the front out into the treeline for the same. Even into the sky a thick spray of his former-body covered the foliage to the top, and he suspected that much of it would run over into the rest of the trees for at least three or more of them.

Without the living container for it, his magic funneled back into the two sources it could still sense - Harry's free-standing soul right there in the line of fire, and Ferrovax far over head and out soaring around without a thought toward what had just transpired. The kick of it slammed Harry down to one knee and a hand with a quiet "_Oomph!_" and left his spirit trembling from the energy coursing through it. He felt alive, in a strange sense, neither like he had when he was actually in his body, or when he usually was while using Astral Projection.

He could feel a renewing tether of connection to his dragon's mind, and suddenly the worming tendrils of thought rushed through. _Harry-kinslayer-partner of mine,_ Ferrovax's voice shouted distantly, _where are you now-present-here? I can not sense you as I should!_ Harry stood up carefully, feeling the ground crunch softly beneath his ethereal feet, and looked into the moonlit sky before answering, as if searching for something.

_I'm... fine,_ he answered slowly, _I think my words to you before were never truer. This world is a danger in every sense of it. I just had my body taken over by some other spirit or creature, ranting about much the same material as that old man had, and I was forced to detonate it. I think it might be for the best if you returned and let me try something I saw that other Rider try once - I don't want to risk walking around out here as a visible-spirit, not with the way my magic just returned. I think I'm in a state undefinable as living _or_ deceased, actually._

He felt a semblance of annoyance flicker through their connection, but Ferrovax wheeled about in the sky and came tumbling back through the spiraling currents toward him. _How can you be alive-living-breathing and dead-gone-cold at once, Harry-kinslayer-partner of mine? You are a walking contradiction and paradox. What is there for you to do now? I sense something of your intentions._ Harry shrugged and remembered Ferrovax could not feel it or see it, and responded after another moment. _I want to take a ride in your body, if I can not actually ride atop it like usual. I think we should try the latter first and confirm it is not a viable way before the former is attempted._ He said.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Any other Wheel of Time fans frothing at the mouth yet? Yeah. This is pretty awful. I wrote most of it over ten or so days as filler in 2012, testing the waters and seeing what I could explore. Don't expect a repetition of this if I ever try to do a WoT!DH!Harry story like **Last Dragonrider**. Below is a different pair of stabs.**

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><p>Turn II<p>

* * *

><p>As he relaxed into the rush between the dimensions, Harry felt a sudden jolt, as if celestial friction had briefly caught up and grabbed at him. Another such jolt a few moments later in the time-between-time, in the void, and then once again confirmed that he was suddenly experiencing turbulence.<p>

_Really?_ He thought idly, both interested in this first-time occurrence, as well as nonplussed. _Since when did I ever have trouble stepping into a world?_

As if in response to his wondering, he was jerked to a halt altogether. Then he was sliding _sideways_, spinning out into a deep curvature as if trying to sidestep something unseen, and all of a sudden the faint darkness of the void gave way as if crinkling, rather than bursting.

He tumbled down and looked about himself without the usual fog of confusion. The usual frost that tinged his form was quite thicker, making his landing rather more difficult, as his limbs struggled to snap free of the icicles binding them at his side into a rough crouch, and none of the usual heat blistered in to warm him.

_Something is direly wrong here,_ he thought-as his mouth was frozen shut, it rather well prevented him from speaking-and he noticed the landscape shift.

As if made of water, or perhaps a faltering illusion, the hill he had seen up ahead as well as the few trees around himself melted away, and he found himself overlooking a steep descent from a very precarious position.

_Oi!_ With a hefty grunt, he twisted his body and shattered the remaining ice, shoving up and backwards to his feet to put some distance between himself and that unpleasant fall, and found himself back in the same position that he had just vacated some good few dozen feet away.

"What in the blazes is wrong with this place?" He asked aloud. He had not expected anyone to be around to answer him, and no one did so, but even still he turned an irate glare up into the wavy heavens regardless.

"What kind of world did you thrust me into now, Fate?" He demanded.

"I do not speak for the Wheel, nor the Creator, but surely even you do not tempt it so, stranger?" someone else spoke up from behind his back.

Harry rotated and flicked a hand by instinct. To his surprise, the wandless magic reacted accordingly, and a deep purple spell surged toward the interloper - only to have the figure vanish and reappear a short ways off, staring at him over the edge of a large bow.

"Another one, then..." she trailed off mildly, and drew a silver arrow without nocking it.

"'Another one'?" Harry quoted back at her, and realized what he should have sooner. It was quite clear to him that this was not a world in which he could gain something, whatever it was.

She nodded once, never taking her eyes from his hands. "Perhaps you could explain what is happening? Two fully grown men never been seen in the Pattern, in the weaving of the Wheel, capable of Saidin like this?" She asked in turn.

* * *

><p>Turn III<p>

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><p>Harry exhaled. Deep within his veins, a longing that he had forgotten about somehow, after all of these years, began to tug at him again. <em>A chance to truly test myself against Voldemort,<em> he thought, staring at the woman - Birgitte, wasn't it? - as she explained to him what he had just gotten himself into.

"In time, perhaps, you will be born just the same as the other man," she continued as if nothing at all was amiss. "It is rare, especially for one who has entered _Tel'aran'rhiod _in body rather than merely in mind, but he did so only a few days ago."

"That isn't very long, but I sense an immense _'but'_ coming up," he said into the silence after a few moments stretched on irritably.

"There is," she answered, smiling in jest. "A few days here may not seem much, Harry, but it could very well be years outside of _Tel'aran'rhiod._"

He exhaled again as if sucker punched. _If I was any later, the gap between us could be so much further. But age doesn't matter compared to ingrained ability, does it?_ He voiced his last thoughts aloud, but Birgitte shook her head and laughed.

He waited for it to settle down, until his patience grew thin enough to draw his wand. Before his hand was done tapping in the rune sequence to the vault in his war robes, she had drawn another arrow and nocked it, shifting around to place it against the tip of his neck.

"I would not advise you to draw whatever dagger you keep, Harry," she said with complete seriousness.

Despite himself, he had to ask, "And why is that?"

The tip drove into his flesh an eighth of an inch, and he grimaced. "I may not be able to embrace _saidar_, but neither can you embrace _saidin_ and react before I have skewered your spine like a rabbit for stew," she answered in the same tone.

A flicker of his gaze was all Harry did in response, casting his soul out through astral projection, and Birgitte adjusted her aim even as her finger released, the deep _twang!_ of the bow flexing back and forth as the shot was fired.

To his further surprise, the arrow cut a trench through his upper left shoulder, gouging cleanly a quarter of an inch deep from start to back.

"How in the fuck-" he asked again, only to be interrupted.

"Are you a fool, Harry, or merely ignorant? Did I not warn you of the dangers of _Tel'aran'rhiod_?" She demanded. "I am dead, and whatever you have done, I suspect you are the same now. Did you believe me harmless as a spirit?"

Harry reached up and pressed a hand to his bleeding shoulder, winching at the raw texture. Nothing had yet to actually _harm _him when he had done this before, even though some aspects of magic on the previous worlds had certainly had an affect on him.

This was something else altogether, however. "Apparently I am a fool," he admitted reluctantly. He silently applied a wandless attempt at a healing charm, but it barely flickered the edges of his wound beneath his fingers.

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><p><strong>AN: This is, at best, a closer approximation of how I might play such a story out. Harry is slammed into the World of Dreams and forced to wait until the Pattern has woven him into it before he can escape. He'll eventually be born - to face a Voldemort many years his senior again, unknowing enemies waiting to meet. Kind of like Rand and Lews Therin, neither has knowledge of the memories in their heads of who they once were. I kind of see this world as the very final world my DH!Harry will ever journey to, as the pattern embroils him eternally thereafter.**


	41. 41: Auror Potter opening

Motes of blue light sprang up along the upper walls with a flick of the wrist, nestling into the torch brackets encircling the room and casting an ethereal glow to the scene of the crime.

Hexagon in shape, it was a small room that held the victim's corpse, the kind of old-Victorian work that the rest of the relocated-mansion had gradually replaced with modern conveniences.

One whole wall was taken up by the fireplace, dark red stone coated in fresh ashes, while an armchair lay on its side nearby with ribbon slashes cut into the back.

A handful of books lay in shredded tatters, and the small stone shelf that had once held them beside the armchair was now cracked and chipped.

What stood out the most about the room, however, was the_ sheer amount _of blood splashed everywhere within; blanketing the scuffy tiles underfoot, even creeping up along the granite walls to saturate the ceiling above, and yet not so much as one drop could be found within inches of the body it had come from.

Turning his eyes to the corpse, it became apparent that age lines had not been kind to the muggle man's face, even before his demure features had become permanently cast into a rictus of final agony.

Fractured ivory glasses hung askew from one ear, and the matching ivory pipe clenched between the fingers of his left hand like a club had also developed a jagged line down one side.

The opposite hand lay outstretched toward the fireplace, but the fingers curled inward as if recoiling from the heat, and papery skin clung to the underlying bone tautly.

Aside from a long gray robe wrapped around the upper and lower body loosely, the corpse was naked, and one sleeve had been ripped away to leave the left arm bare.

Having seen enough, Harry Potter turned his head away and focused on the two recruits at his back.

"Scan the room for residual spell usage," he told them neutrally. "That includes charms, curses, and minor jinxes. Don't leave out anything on-"

"On the off-chance that the murderer left behind a trail or trace of his methods, I got it, Potter," the taller of the two interrupted brashly. Then he flicked his own wand and cast a silent Bubblehead charm to cut out the stench wafting through the air, and ducked into the room as if he had already figured out everything he needed to with his own short glance.

Frowning at the former Quidditch minor-league Keeper, Harry turned to the other recruit.

"Right, while McLaggen conducts his analysis, tell me what you've observed?"

Colin Crevy fumbled his wand out of a pocket on the powder blue robes, eager to please as he ever was around his idol, but with a slight twitch of the head he stood up straight and breathed in and out quickly. When he was done, a firmer look had settled onto his features and he held himself like Auror Tonks had advised.

Approaching the first pool of blood, Creevy bent low and prodded the tip of his wand into it, then murmured the first analysis charm and waited while a sickly green glow built up and spread outward from the point of contact. The trail surged along unimpeded until it reached the end, then jumped up and began racing through the stains on the wall. In its wake, the glow faded and left only faint pinpricks behind where something had been detected. Wisps of energy clung to the splatters of blood along the upper walls and ceiling, and after a moment to see if anything else would be highlighted, Creevey drew his wand away with a light clockwise tug, meant to ensure the residue held.

"What in Circe's name is this?" Cormac asked with a raised eyebrow directed at the glow, and then Colin.

"Detection charm!" Colin defended with a further glance in Harry's direction.

His fingers barely trembled at the expression of dismay the older Auror was wearing, and Colin quickly turned his eyes back to the room just in time to catch his fellow recruit poke at the nearest wisp.

"_DON-_" his abruptly panicked exclamation was cut short as the spell attached to Cormac's wand tip interacted with the charm, and within the span of a beat, the whole thing had unraveled and faded away.

"_-'T!_" he finished a moment later, and processing what had just happened, he sagged downward as if deflating altogether.

"Whatsamatter, Creevey? Just recast it if it was that dear to you," Cormac dismissed.

He continued to poke around at little things here and there, but after another few moments he let out a satisfied snort and walked back out.

Colin snatched his sleeve in passing and, in an unexpected display of the fury he had been placed into Gryffindor for ten years ago, he leaned into his opposite's face.

"Do you have any idea how long I practiced that charm, Cormac? Do you even _understand_ what _kind_ of charm it is and the _purpose_ it was created for?"

Narrowed eyes stared down challengingly, but a firm gust of air caught the two of them and shoved each recruit apart at least three feet.

Harry pointed a cautionary wrist toward Colin, and then adjusted it to point at Cormac's head a moment later.

Both men took note of the tip of holly and phoenix feather sticking out from the holster attached to that wrist, and while Colin flinched as if struck instead of gently pushed away, Cormac stared at it defiantly.

"Save it for the debriefing. Just tell me what you each noticed about the _murder_," Harry put extra emphasis on the reason they were even there at all, and added, "before the Muggle police show up and we have to bring in Obliviators."

Meeting Harry's moss green eyes for another moment, the older wizard wrestled his frustrations back under control, remembering why he was even trying to make something of himself in this line of work.

"Blood splatters were unusual, Potter. I've never seen the likes of it before, but the nearest I could say is that it was drained slowly and finally detonated." Nodding once as if to reaffirm his answer, he added, "And I couldn't find even the traces of that in the first place."

Colin stepped up as soon as he was certain Cormac had shut up, and he gave his piece.

"I _did_ find the traces, but I couldn't identify any of the residue while it was _still preserved,_" he stated. "All I can add is that the blood spray is unnatural."

"Is that all?" Harry asked.

Cormac nodded his head impatiently and swallowed his natural urge to retort, and Colin nodded as well, if a bit more reserved once again.

"Then you both failed."

Blinking at the odd statement, it was Cormac that looked around when he realized that it was not the Harry Potter in front of them that had spoken, but rather the same voice from the room he had just preoccupied.

The corpse slowly stirred and rolled over, leaning one hand across an upraised knee. The features gradually stirred and began to regress as it did so, with layer upon layer of carefully applied transfiguration unwinding. Scarred, darkened flesh lightened and smoothed, loose black hair sprouted from a bald pate, and horrified grey eyes deepened into clear green. The robe slid down and enlarged, melting over the wrinkle-free legs to become slacks, and upon reaching the ankles, they went even further to become worn down Muggle hikers boots. The cracked ivory pipe still clutched inside of one hand narrowed and lengthened out, becoming a polished wand of even richer ivory hue than it had been before.

With a final stir, the real Harry Potter flicked the Elder wand and nullified the runestones at each corner of the room and in the hall leading up to it.

Without energy funneling into them, the illusions maintaining the mansion shuddered and vanished. In their place, pristine white walls arose to a low vaulted ceiling, just one corner of the Auror Office upon the second floor of the Ministry of Magic, and the memory charms hindering the recruits' foreknowledge of this truth rescinded just the same.

The original Harry sighed as his features slid even more fluidly back and upward, leaving behind scarlet pink hair, rich brown eyes, and the very much feminine Auror Tonks as the stand-in for the trial.

"What the bloody hell, Potter!" Cormac shouted as the realization dawned, looking back and forth between Harry and Tonks in outrage.

Colin merely leaned back and shook his head, feeling shame to match his anger at the other Auror-to-be.

"One," Harry stated in an equally firm tone, "you failed to take note of the slash marks down the armchair indicative of an animal attack."

He gestured and the marks were enshrouded in brilliant blue light, highlighting their ignorance.

"Two," he continued, "you failed to examine the corpse beyond a cursory once-over."

Cormac stomped forward, but Harry spoke up and slashed his hand forward, and the older wizard was halted in his tracks.

"And three," he said gravely, "you disrupted your partners work and dismissed it as needless."

"_You_- _that isn't right_!" Cormac stated, staring at the tip of the Death Stick held at ease in the younger man's hand.

"You both failed, Cormac. _Both_." Standing up with a creek at his left knee, Harry strode forward and walked past the three of them with barely a glance and small nod toward his own partner in the Auror forces.

Once he was gone, Tonks spoke up.

"You can't just memorize the guidebook, McLaggen. And Creevey, spell-work isn't all there is to unraveling a scene. Robards doesn't expect either of you to succeed, and you may not think it of Harry either after this, but he _does_ believe."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Auror!Potter this time around.  
><strong>


	42. 42: Pokemon-Naruto mash-up, Red v Naruto

**Challenge**: _Anyone willing to do a Naruto vs Red fight? Let's see how hordes of clones deal with a MOTHER****ING CHARIZARD._

**Answer**: After years in isolation, Champion Red emerges into the world anew. His sights are set on a fresh challenge after taming Mount Silver at last - the impassable seas surrounding the distant Sevii Islands, beyond which no man has seen for more than five hundred years. **-/-** It was bound to happen sooner or later after the War concluded. Sasuke is disrupting things while the peace treaty between Konoha and Sound remains incomplete, and it is time Naruto had a chat with his once-friend-turned-rival-turned-Otokage in person.

**Before you begin this**, it is imperative to read a previous entry into Assortment of Oneshots - #**27**. The Narutoverse depicted below takes place in the future of that world.

* * *

><p>~[<em>Pocket Monsters: Ramen edition<em>]~

or

_When Legends Collide_;  
><em>the Sixth Hokage versus the Indigo League Champion<em>

* * *

><p>Tidal waves large enough to smash against the barren roof of Mount Silver itself at their apogee loomed up from thirty leagues out and fell upon each other violently, tumbling and rising anew without end at that distance. With each titanic collision two and three hundred after-ripples and lesser waves roared outward, only a little less tall and destructive than the ones to come before, yet the vast swath of open ocean between their origin and the great white perimeter walls only a hundred feet out from the beach where a few oblivious trainers roamed the Tanoby Ruins in search of fame, treasure, and the rarest of the Unown proved to be enough to diminish the threat to a few lapping currents mere feet high by the time they slipped up to the shore.<p>

_He _was not oblivious, nor interested in such pedantic glimpses of glory as the others there that day sought with a single-minded intensity. His name was still known from one edge of the Indigo League to the other, including these next-to-autonomous Sevii Islands. It was spoken with reverence by many, with hushed whispers by some, and with vehement disgust by no few of the politicians who believed him dead and gone forever. No, he did not need more fame. He had beheld and tamed the rarest of treasures this world had to offer for three years, and his pokédex had flagged only a handful of the newer Johtoan-files. _That_ old quest had concluded the day he scribed his name into the roof of the Hall of Fame, where no marching feet could erode it but by those of time itself. His was a purpose far removed from the others on that beach. For an hour he had stood and watched the roll and plummet of those ungodly waves taunt the northern world, assessing, rolling the odds, considering the risks that lay ahead. He was already committed to the task of surmounting this plateau, of that there was no doubt. The past six months had gone into procuring the means to do just that, six bitter and extolling months...

Salt spray gathered upon the volatile winds swept in for the umpteenth time, drawing him back to the moment and making him tilt vermillion eyes downward by rote beneath the rim of his tattered, bleached cap more faded scarlet and white than bright red any longer. Sea foam brushed against his weathered running shoes, lapping around the soles without care and slipping in between his toes. On the edge of his attention he caught the sound of steady footsteps trudging through the sand, too light to be the old man digging at the temple remnants nearby, too heavy to be one of the children eager to swim in octillery-infested waters.

"Do you know how to pick a scenic view or what, pal?"

His head tilted up and aside in recognition of the voice, and the casual tension in his shoulders smoothed out as he turned to lock vermillion eyes upon familiar hazel-brown again. They examined one another briefly, and Blue let out a rough snort of derision as he stopped only feet away.

Darker, ruffled hair left in a tumble of natural spikes came a few inches longer these days, almost touching the back of Blue's collar. The retired-Champion tilted his own head in mocking tribute to the one man to ever best him at his height of success, a wry grin playing over his lips even as he hooked his hands through his pockets and slouched back just-so, completely at ease.

"I swear, you look more coolly detached every time we meet," his rival said derogatorily, "although to be fair, for a deadman-warmed-over you're in fairly good condition."

Red inclined his head, saying nothing in return. They both knew that he had made contact throughout the years, if highly-classified. The Oak heir simply couldn't let the opportunity to be brash pass by unmolested, and he continued in that vein after only a few moments of waiting to see what kind of rise he could draw out.

"Don't give me that look, hot-shot. I haven't see you inside of three-and-a-half years, and once-a-clefairy-moon emails don't count for squat. Maybe try for a little sympathy when I have to go back home and tell your mother how her only son has taken on _another_ death wish to fulfill, as if the first two hadn't been bad enough for her health."

Nothing more passed over his battleworn features, no hint of a smile at the old banter. The current Viridian City Gym Leader seemed to realize that wouldn't change; he sighed and shook his head in disdain.

"Y'know, Red, I had hoped your little stint at the top of the world would have taught you, what, peace? Respect for the sanctity of your own life? It isn't good to carry on like this, always reaching out for the next impossibility."

"No." The way he said the word conveyed any number of meanings; _no, it isn't a death wish_. _No, the others weren't_, _either._ Or _no, you don't understand_. Even _no, don't tell her anything at all_. But somehow he managed to avoid answering the actual questions poised to him.

"Fine," Blue conceded reluctantly. "I can recognize that Aggron-hard stubbornness from a mile away - and FYI, so could the paparazzi that spotted your tell-tale Charizard's black scales glinting in the sky from Vermillion City to here, the ones I had to beat back with a stick half a mile behind us just so we could even be talking right now in a measure of quiet to ourselves, so have a bit of advice before you bite off this much vista in one go; the only real way across those waves you're so intent upon conquering is to halt them altogether." Red tilted his head again to glance at him askew, drawing a quick bark of laughter from his rival. "Hah, you think I don't know you better than this? Give over, pal. Mount Silver was just a stepping stone compared to the leviathan staring us down right now."

His hands settled idly across his hips, thumbs hooked through the edge of his pokébelt to rest across the back of Pikachu's fast ball and Snorlax's heavy ball. It was a tell and they both knew it - a measure of consideration, of acknowledgment.

The unsaid 'OK, I'm listening'.

Some of the weight seemed to fade from Blue's posture and expression. He grinned again, turning to face that imposing sea.

"Glad to see even you have a chink or two left in that plating to exploit. Okay. Advice - You're going to need to flash-freeze them and believe you me, it isn't so simple as hurling an ice-type at the problem and letting it go to work. The waves in the back will just grind the ones ahead apart in a matter of minutes-to-seconds the further out you go." A brief pause, considering his words. "Its the same age-old stratagem everyone whose ever bothered to try has invested in, and not one of them succeeded. Personally, I had the good sense to retire after two and a half miles, _Articuno _or not."

The pause stretched out for several seconds, observing each other again in light of that information. Blue finally sighed and took on a stricken expression when it was clear that he had nothing to say. "What, you aren't impressed? I know its not mapping out the legendary depths of _Mount Silver_, but I'd like to think that tracking down and persuading that frozen chicken to obey my commands - and without a master ball, thank you very much! - would be worth at least a frosty 'Congratulations, Blue!' over the usual cold shoulder, pal."

Vermillion eyes widened a fraction, the lines around them lifting just a little. The faintest quirk to the corners of his lips. It was a brief crack in his resolute facade - and he had to admit that it _did_ feel good to hear Blue's voice in person again after all these years.

Blue grinned. "If you want to follow in my footsteps, as always, then use _Sheer Cold,_ _Blizzard, _and _Ice Beam_, in falling order of viability. Stagger them together in quick succession - _Cold_ to cut the deepest through the sea and stifle the undercurrents, _Blizzard_ to reenforce the frost and cool down the immediate and up-coming environment, and _Beam_ to generate the passage up to the next sluggish wave before it breaks upon you. Rinse and repeat until your little plesiosaur collapses from exhaustion and you might just make it to half an hour."

Blue flicked his left hand idly over to the pitted surface of the lone poké ball resting on Red's belt, the ash-black Charizard within a dark shadow beneath the surface. "Of course you _could_ take your chances and try flying over them, but good luck breaking mach velocity against _these_ gales. They've only grown stronger and more wild through the centuries from the few records in the Indigo database, and I haven't heard of a _Crobat_ capable of surviving that barrage, let alone an overgrown wyvern. You'll both be slapped down and drowned in minutes."

The growing amusement he had felt crinkled, expression stiffening. He could feel his starter's poké ball heating up as Charizard shared the sentiment, awoken from their conversation.

Blue broke out into a satisfied smirk at finally riling him up.

"I've had a good bit of time to think about this on the trip over, after I was tipped off to your presence by the early media break starting at Vermillion City - which, again, I stifled before it could grow out of hand beyond a few of the vermin beating me out here. I figured you would appreciate the gesture with all that haste you were making."

He nodded imperceptibly. Blue returned the nod part-way and continued, "We can rule out flying and freezing, and you don't need me to tell you about trying to _surf_ your way forward. Psychic barriers and telekinetic movement more-or-less are rendered just as useless due to the amount of force constantly pounding away at them. You see where I'm going with this yet?"

"_Yes_." The word was short and sharp. He was growing tired of the Oak heir's antics.

"No need to get snippy, pal." Blue settled back into a slouch again, refusing to acknowledge the tone. "The sole exception to that domain is teleportation. But you're looking at roughly a thousand miles by my best calculation - _yes_, I said _one thousand_. More than three times the length of the old estimates. And at this level even an Alakazam would faint before getting a quarter of the way over - again, mine did." He fell silent and closed his eyes for a few moments, and when he spoke again it was with a bit of melancholy in his tone. "Ala's empty poké ball is resting in Lavender Tower. He died out there so I could learn how far I'd failed to traverse, thinking that maybe, just maybe all I had to do was warp my way forward."

And like that, suddenly things made sense. The anger he felt at taunting Charizard's life was pushed aside and blocked out, eyes softening.

Blue opened his own eyes and forced himself to grin again, but now the brittleness to it could be seen. He was using humor and crass to offset the pain coming here had evoked.

"Even that trumped up clone of yours is going to have a hard time crossing such a distance in a single bound._ Mewtwo_ isn't the only solution, but..." he trailed off as his eyes examined Red's pokébelt. There was the usual fast ball and Pikachu, net ball and Lapras, heavy ball and Snorlax, luxury ball and Espeon, and of course the plain poké ball and Charizard. But where a sixth should have rested at the back, the master ball holding the ferocious gene-spliced legendary, there was nothing but an ordinary and empty great ball.

A sharp pain seemed to cut through the former Champion's expression. He breathed in quickly and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose in imitation of his grandfather, shoulders dropping, hazel half-lidded. "You actually went through with it, didn't you?" he asked, and suddenly old frustrations long concealed burst up to the surface at the thought - at the reminder of the very first email more than three years ago, when Red had abdicated the throne to bring _Mewtwo_ under control... until it could self-regulate itself in this world of monsters and men.

To teach it _calm_, to teach it _understanding_... and to _isolate_ it in the deepest barrow known to humanity should its unstable powers explode again. Mount Silver would not be so vulnerable a target as Cerulean Caverns had been.

"You gave up your reign at the Indigo League almost before it began to tame that mess of enzymes and fiery rage, like it was nothing at all to have defeated _Lorelei_, _Bruno_, _Agatha_, and _Lance_ four-straight." His voice took on a black edge and his eyes flashed open to stare hard at his rival. "Like it was nothing to overcome _me_."

Red said nothing to that. He had made his choices. They had proven true. And he had expected this kind of outrage since the onset, but knowing what he knew now about Blue's loss... well. _Let him vent._

"Well that's just perfect, then," the Viridian Gym Leader uttered in disgust, turning and walking down the shore a good distance. He eventually returned, still fuming, but he had wrangled the worst of it under control by then, and he jabbed a finger in Red's direction. "Either find another mind strong enough to sustain extreme mass-teleportation, or go hunt down that new upstart, Ethan Gold, and find out if he'll loan you the _beast of the seas_ to beat the whole affair into submission from here to whatever exists beyond."

"No," he said more evenly than before. A simpler sort, no hidden meanings wrapped up within it. Before Blue could speak up he reached into the inner pouch on his jacket, where once he had stored his badges, and drew out the miniature master ball missing from his belt. A quiet groan warped the air around it as the sphere was enlarged and the battered purple surface turned transparent to reveal its goods; burnished silver feathers, baleful cobalt slits above a maw spread wide in fury, eight distinct jet-blue flaps flared upright in agitation. A legendary born of the Whirl Islands, and trailed to its ancestral roosting grounds between Four and Five Island just over six months ago.

Hazel widened, a moment of disbelief coloring Blue's expression. "I just fought Gold at the Cinnabar Ruins two days ago, and he brought out that bastard as his trump card! How did you convince him to part with it already?"

"My own," Red stated firmly. A hundred thoughts flashed over his rival's face, jealously and realization for the lack of impression over capturing an _Articuno_, frustration at being surpassed yet again, and a more recent pain, perhaps even humiliation, that was crushed before it could appear for more than a moment. Eventually denial was the strongest to win out as the inquisitive nature inherited from his grandfather finally emerged.

"I don't believe it. Where could you have found a mate or offspring? The legendaries don't breed as common creatures do, and we both know it. So why the lie?"

He considered telling him, for just a moment. His pokédex would have the registration information proving his ownership, the time and date, and would have included the capture coordinates on the charted seas... had he not terminated the tracker protocol years ago. He - and therefore his capture - were suitably listed as "unknown", and he preferred it to stay that way.

Nothing good could come of three Champions beholden to _Lugia_, however, and if Blue believed that there could be more available in the world... no. Two were bad enough that he was only at peace with that decision because he would be traveling far away from the other in due time.

Blue's hands clenched into fists and he shoved them into his pockets at the silence. "You know I'm going to call the kid up and demand an explanation for why he'd hand over his legendary, right? I'm pretty sure he didn't know you were going to take it for a spin out into the _impassable seas_! I didn't seriously think you'd be able to convince him to part with it!"

Red just sighed at the indignation, breaking their gaze as he turned his cap down and stared at the master ball. When he lifted his head long seconds later a rare moment of fatigue marked his features drawn, tired.

"Blue," he said at last, weary of the argument and certain at last that he was ready to depart, as if he had unknowingly been waiting to speak to his old childhood rival one last time, face to face. He clapped his left hand to the other man's right shoulder, vermillion eyes upon hazel, and for just a moment conveyed something that they had once shared when the Indigo League had been ignorant of the names _Champion Red_ and _Champion Blue_, before they had received pokédexes and inherited the weight of all-consuming responsibility.

Then the moment was gone. "Goodbye."

He stepped back and flung his right arm high, the master ball soaring skyward to burst open at the peak. Crimson poképower fell like a bolt of lightning and coalesced beneath the calmer waves on this side of the barrier wall, and the young legendary's head broke the surface the next moment with a thunderous roar that shook the sand beneath their feet and could be heard for miles around.

Blue winched. "Mew-dammit," he swore. "If you go through with this you're going to make me go chase after Ho-oh to bless your bloated corpse when it turns up beyond the wall! It'll singe me to soot before I get within a hundred yards!"

A faint smirk finally crested his face as he snatched the sphere from the air and replaced the great ball with it on his pokébelt, then dove into the water. The wilder _Lugia_ eyed him warily, thin pupils easily agitated after the short time they had had together, yet it kept its maw closed tight and allowed him to wrap his arms around its neck with only a low growl in the back of its throat. A whispered command was given and in the next moment, as hundreds of reporters armed with microphones and cameras rushed up the canyon slope toward Tanoby Beach at last, ignoring Blue's orders to stay back, trainer and _Lugia_ erupted fifty feet into the air, arcing wide to splash down and, some seconds later, emerge just as victoriously into the sky. Twain vortexes followed with each flap of wings as it broke the surface.

Thousands of photographs would show nothing but a harried blur, reddish-black upon a beam of white - while only the live footage aired at that very moment would remain as distant proof that Pallet Town's second esteemed hero had come again.

"_It is him!_"

"_Champion Red!_"

"_What kind of pokémon is _that_?!_"

"_Where has he been all these years? Champion Blue, what's going on?_"

Blue ignored the questions and watched his rival vanish beyond the barrier walls into the _impassable seas_ with the force of a moving typhoon, unable to quantify his emotions beyond the same age-old sadness, regret, and quietly simmering frustration.

* * *

><p>The last drop of ink was still fresh from the pen as Naruto Uzumaki, elected Sixth Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves by near-unanimous vote, stood upright from his desk and stretched with a wide yawn. The old hat perched across his head proclaiming his position swayed precariously, leaning back far enough around the tangle of wild blond spikes to display the slightly newer band of cloth and steel wound round his forehead that he had inherited from a childhood teacher. It was one of his most treasured positions, that roughed up hitai-ate and scribed leaf symbol recognizing him as an official Genin of Konoha, second only to the long white coat his father, the Fourth Hokage, had once fought and died in that he himself now wore every day.<p>

Just as he finished the extension and began to relax his stomach gurgled pitifully. His expression of relief at completing the paperwork and standing upright again after two hours hunched over those forms became a frown as he surveyed the dearth of microwaveable ramen cups at his feet.

"Aw, man. Do I really need that reminder right now?" he lamented the lack of his favorite food, the gurgles growing stronger. Usually he would have had twenty or thirty of the heaven-sent snacks stacked up on either side of his desk, the empty plastic thoroughly cleaned out by this time of the night, while a handful of larger bowls balanced precariously in a chair across the room courtesy Ramen Ichiraku from breakfast.

But not tonight.

Or last night, or the night before_ that_, trailing back for more than a week straight. It was the most heinous crime the Sixth Hokage had ever seen committed against the Land of Fire during his several-month-term - _noodle thievery_. All the crates coming in from the Land of Grass were mysteriously empty by the time they reached Konoha. Ramen had become an S-class rarity, and no one was feeling it more than Naruto Uzumaki, whose diet was primarily a staple of the stuff.

It wasn't hard to place the blame, either - Sasuke Uchiha, his old friend-turned-rival-turned-Otokage. He knew perfectly well that no other man alive had a reason to instigate this kind of petty retribution for sleights both real and imagined - it was a Uchiha tradition, and by Kami did Sasuke ever live up to that legacy now that he had a wife of his own and the family name to rebuild from scratch.

It all stemmed back to the most recent Hokage Election and, really, the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Sasuke had finally picked a side to fight for after years of wayward, even out-and-out villainous pandering, of trying to change the ninja world and cutting down those who stood in his path with little to no remorse. That he had contributed to the downfall of his resurrected ancestor toward the end had only been enough to balance the scales in the eyes of many, and the villagers had long memories. The hero's welcome Sasuke had expected was instead a cold shoulder, and he had taken to brooding in the old Uchiha Compound with his allies while the Fire Daimyo and his council conferred with the Konoha council.

Which had lasted two months. Exactly long enough for Naruto himself to recuperate and leave the hospital, to be officially named a candidate and, at the approval of nine-tenths the Jounin, elected Hokage. Sasuke vanished within the hour in a burst of Kirin, leaving Karin, Suigetsu, Juugo, and Kabuto to follow as they would. It was only some time later that word began to spread of the last Uchiha's claim to the abandoned Sound and all of its resources. That no Daimyo would pitch in to solidify his position as Otokage had only underlined the tensions between the two villages over the coming months.

He hadn't been able to openly cast his doubts about Sasuke until just the day before, when an envoy had arrived with Sasuke's new peace treaty terms, carried by one Suigetsu Hōzuki formerly of the Village Hidden in the Mist. A brief letter attached named the Sound as responsible for the act of sabotage and that they would continue such operations until Konoha signed the aforementioned document and returned it to the Otokage for confirmation. Then and only then would the shortage of ramen supplies be compensated for with the surplus stock of the stuff held by the Sound.

Oddly enough there was no mention of preventing the crime from reoccurring.

The council had advised him not to take Sasuke's bait, to wait and consider the outrageous terms as a proper Hokage should.

Suigetsu was thus currently tied up in the ANBU Torture and Interrogation chambers with Anko and Ibiki, rather than sent back in a sealed keg - if the Daimyo and other village heads did not recognize Sasuke as Otokage or the Sound as a proper location, and the last Uchiha was determined to alienate the one 'kage willing to acknowledge the empty position like this, then he was just as happy to retract his previous statements on that front and treat the 'envoy' as just another missing-nin in need of a meeting with the hunters of his home village.

Having given the subject the rest of the day and night to stew, proving to the council that he wasn't a hotheated boy that rushed into trouble eagerly anymore, Naruto had come to a decision on what else to do about the matter.

Go to Sound and remind Sasuke that peace was a two-way street... and so was war.

* * *

><p>The sun was a bloody disk upon the horizon before he had finally departed, crimson and orange rays bright across the treetops of his home village.<p>

The Shadow Clone he had left behind to run the day-to-day operations in his steed would last long enough to conclude the mission, with Kakashi serving back-up and assistance duty to it. He wasn't foolish enough to leave Orochimaru and the Root entirely loose to do what they would in his extended absence.

As he leaped from branch to branch for the third hour in a row, Naruto rubbed at the back of his eyes wearily. Sleep had eluded him when he had returned to the hospital for a quick nap - the thought that he would finally be confronting his old rival again had his nerves too jumped up to permit much rest. He wasn't fool enough to meet Sasuke head-on as he was, however, and he didn't anticipate reaching the Sound within a few days, giving him time to stop at one of the inns he and Jiraiya had once used during his two-year training period so long ago once his body finally wore itself out.

He was mid-way through his next jump when a sudden flash of information interrupted his concentration - his clone's abrupt dismissal, relaying news that warranted immediate action; Kiri-nin sent by the Mizukage had just arrived with word of an unknown nin riding a summon as powerful as a Tailed Beast, which had come from the south seas and passed beside the Land of Water leaving whirlpools and storms in its wake. More to the point, it was angling toward Uzushio.

His family's ravaged home village, appropriately left behind in the ruins of the Land of Whirlpools.

Naruto managed to land on his hands and feet as he processed that, bright blue eyes narrowed to slits. His metaphysical hackles rose at the thought that someone was invading that hallowed place, let alone someone causing chaos on this kind of scale again.

_Dammit. The Bijuu are dead and gone! They can't be coming back into the world!_

He exhaled sharply and closed his eyes to concentrate, forcing himself to calm down and sit still. Minutes came and went as he tried to gather in nature energy. It felt like a constant _chidori_ was pressed against the back of his neck, the itch to be on the move, making the task far harder than it should have been. Eventually, feeling as if it took an eternity, nature energy began to fill the former jinchuriki. More than ever be missed Kurama and the Nine Tails abilities - he could have been in Uzushio in an hour at full run, without any of the delays he now had to go through to enter Sage Mode.

Four or five hours would have to suffice when he was done.

* * *

><p>Fresh, lush green forests that never seemed to end, along with great churning rivers zigzagging here and there, represented the majority of the land of the great continent. A few tiny islets dotted a larger island shrouded in thick fog off to his right, allowing just the rare stone peak to emerge here, a patch grass and trees there.<p>

And everywhere he looked he could see old-world structures still intact. Communication equipment atop buildings, fishing vessels that were too new to be relics. Even the rare human, who fled at the mere sight of his approach - proof that life had gone on after the cataclysm hundreds of years ago on this side of the world as well.

His eagerness offset the exhaustion of ten hours trapped in an unending tsunami, riding on the back of a living typhoon. The wind and the waves a constant barrage... it did not do to dwell on those memories, not before this revelation.

He had let the legendary beneath him guide them around some sort of monumental stone bridge and swing them around by the aforementioned island of fog, the sea-dragon keening in the back of its throat in the same manner as when he had tracked it from the Whirl Islands originally.

Somehow or another, another nesting spot lay nearby, just as there had been one in the Sevii Islands.

It was doubtful that the Indigo League could still receive his signal, half-way around the world. He jolted down his thoughts into the pokédex regardless and saved the email as a draft to peruse later, documenting the harrowing voyage and his means of victory therein, the discovery of the continent hours afterward, the rich land and geography, the unevolved sea life swimming away from them. He made note of everything even remotely worth interest for several hours, just as he had during the mapping of Mount Silver.

Eventually his hypothesis was proven true when the sound of churning currents arose, and the sight of swirling whirlpools appeared - along with the ruins of a vast, sprawling village, thousands of buildings sunk into the sea that were momentarily revealed by the vortexes stirred up as they leaped into the air, hundreds of others that survived as so much detriment along the faded shores.

Fatigue made his fingers numb as he clutched the pokédex, speaking quickly. They swam on for close to an hour as the sun emerged from behind the clouds, and the sea calmed even further. _Lugia_ kept up its keening note the entire time.

He finally put the encyclopedia away and pulled the poké ball and master ball from his belt, sending out Charizard. With a gentle run of his hand down the legendary's neck he stood upright and grabbed ahold of the black-scaled wyvern's outstretched arm, climbed up to the hollow between the shoulders, and recalled _Lugia_.

"Thanks," he murmured appreciatively, safely nestled into place. He closed his eyes and gave an order to glide the rest of the way toward the distant shores. Sleep cried out in his muscles, hunger from his stomach. He ignored them both. There was too much he didn't know about this place to risk indulging in the needs of his body. His caution was proven true upon hearing a faint crackle carried by the coming breeze the closer they progressed. Vermillion scanned the forestry again and locked onto the distant sway of branches, rapidly approaching the barren plain of land past the buildings.

By the time they were clear of the ruins along the shore a blond creature in a tattered white coat and atrocious orange and black cloths beneath it leaped thirty feet out of the trunks, rolling to a smooth stop to stare at him with slitted golden eyes. He nearly assumed it was some strange breed of pokémon, but the flesh was too human, the facial features too clean. And he had seen those headbands this one wore on one or two of the people on the other side of the continent.

Whoever it was bit out a short and sharp message in a dialect he could barely comprehend, and even then it was so foreign from modern Indigo as to be borderline unrecognizable. "_Deteike_！"

Regardless of the actual words, the meaning was unmistakable - _you aren't welcome here. And I want you gone._

Red pushed his cap up a little higher above his black bangs, staring resolutely, issuing a challenge just as clear without words at all that he had no intention of leaving. Not after traversing half the world to get here.

The other man's expression darkened thunderously as his hands flew into a flurry of movement and then half a dozen duplicates appeared in a rush of smoke, disabusing him of the notion that it was not a monster after all. They overlapped hands together and three swirls of blue-white energy began to appear between them. He had no intention of letting the apparent monster strike him or his partner. He barked out an order for _Flamethrower_ and high speed evasion.

Charizard roared in answer, swaying the trees. Then he dived, a rumble deep in the ribs that reverberated up the spine and gathered before that hollow, clutched in the throat, building and building and _building_. The first pair below thrust their hands skyward and the ball of energy flew forward like a round of _Shadowball_. Charizard twisted aside and let it blow past them harmlessly. The second pair and the third waited in light of that as the distance fell from seventy feet to fifty, to thirty.

Abruptly they launched and his dragon's maw spread wide. An inferno of blue flames washed over the shoreline and the land where the opponent stood. Two vast _thuds_ filled the air as ebon-and-ruby wings beat against the sky to halt all momentum, deftly avoiding the swirling spheres and bathing the foe in concentrated fire.

It was long moments before Red noticed the way those flames bent around the center of the ground, where the faux-man pokémon stood defiant. _Barrier_, he thought grimly. "Enough," he uttered aloud. Charizard's eyes narrowed in annoyance before he obeyed, gradually closing the jaw and releasing the pent up stream, swallowing the remainder.

The land was charred and cracked for a dozen feet around save for a small circle at the center. No trace remained of the doppelgangers, but he hadn't expected there to be. "_Sore ga subetedesu_？" the creature mocked them, left hand still upraised defensively. The right clutched a buzzing giant throwing star that whipped at the unburned soil, the center like the balls of energy collected before.

Vermillion flickered mercurially. Assessing, considering.

_Two can play your game._ "_Double Team_," he ordered.

Before they could begin to pull back, to gather speed, the figure below launched into the air to swing the shuriken directly, moving so _fast_ - and a white-hot rage burned to life in both trainer and partner. They could do no more than twitch back violently, the pain of one shared by both, so that Red reeled back and felt as if he had just had his own right eye sheared from his skull as the great wyvern's had been. Charizard's neck rolled and smashed the bastard's arm aside before the buzzing tool could come round to finish the job, reaching forward with razor-tipped claws desperate for blood.

The faux-man slapped the slashes aside with his other hand as his momentum drew him back to the earth, managing to spin somehow, and in the instant before he was around, Red knew that he would throw that deadly tool. The poké ball found its way into his hand as he forced the recall trigger, and time slowed to an eternity as the spinning, screeching throwing star raced upward for his partner's belly and throat...

A rush of crimson poképower swallowed the black scaled starter back inside protectively just after a faint snick of pain flared across Red's belly, the barest contact scarring the lighter cream scales and transferred across. He himself managed to roll back and downwards in a parallel arc to the opponent just before the recall was completed. Golden eyes met vermillion, fierce determination conveyed against a summit of contained wrath.

Then they hit the ground. It was impossible to turn his own fall into anything more than a bone-jarring collision, to get his legs up underneath himself to try and perform a roll. He smashed down upon one side and felt the air punched from his lungs, while the other flipped easily and came up standing tall.

_No._ He could hardly see around the pain and darkness clouding his gaze. But he had not endured ten hours upon the _impassable seas_, six months virtually trapped within constant vortexes and buffeting gales, three years under threat of immolation at a moments notice, a year toiling away in the Indigo League, to roll over and die before this stranger's attacks. His good hand stirred and clutched the fast ball, thumbing the release without word or sight to guide him, only instinct. Static numbed his fingers.

And a bloody smile stretched his lips into something macabre.

Pikachu erupted and thunder fell from the heavens in half an instant. The next, lightning rolled, a protective barrier of electric wrath defending his body as the enraged mouse jolted around the landscape and sniped at the enemy. He couldn't see and he could hardly hear, but the vibrations thrumming through sky and soil told him that the battle raged on.

* * *

><p>Whoever the other shinobi was, he seemed to rely entirely upon his unknown summons to fight for him, not unlike Kankuro, a Puppet user from the Land of Wind. The great black beast specialized in fire, and he had nearly taken its head before it was returned to whence it came.<p>

Despite the tiredness making him slower he still managed to flip around and come down on his toes easily, rising upright, marching forward to finish the job. He had never seen such regular eyes glow so bloody and red, as a Sharingan without the tomoe or swirls. He drew a kunai as the other nin stirred from his terrible fall, reaching feebly for one of the odd devices he relied on to call the summons out.

_No you don't_, he thought, drawing his arm back to fling the knife when his foe smiled. Such agonized features should not have been capable of contorting into the way they did, practically feral and dripping with blood.

His eyes narrowed. Then it was too late to stop - a flash of red energy instead of smoke, and a yellow creature appeared - right before lightning burst from its sparking cheeks. It honed in on his metal tools, especially his headband, and the former jinchuriki was forced to leap aside rather than try to stop the element with senjutsu techniques as he had the flames before.

_Now lightning. This feels like fighting Kakuzu all over again!_

He watched as a wave of bolts shot into the cloudy sky, then fell back down and smashed into the ground before the summoner, one after the other in quick succession, forming a living cage that he had no hope of penetrating from afar, most especially having to zigzag around those coming at him directly.

He forced a henge to mask his Sage Mode highlights and then ran through the old handseals to summon two basic clones; the smoke was as helpful for disguising him as the henge.

The three of them launched out, watching the yellow summons juke about erratically. It hissed in confusion for a moment, then threw out three more thunderbolts aimed toward each of them - and each sizzling flare of electricity was slower than the one before it.

Only the real Naruto was able to dodge with any success, as the clones simply attracted the element when they tried to leap away, but it was still useful enough to get him close while tiny black eyes tracked to him. He thrust out with a low yell and was rewarded with the overly large striped mouse being picked up and thrown by the nature energy up against one of the buildings clogging the shoreline.

He evaded its retaliatory stoke in mid-air and rushed toward the summoner, rolling to avoid another round and spinning off two and three kunai to draw the lightning away as he moved.

In no time at all he was before the lightning barrier and he forced his hands together, concentrating as he had rarely done so before. A wisp of blue-white swirl built up between his palms. He had to jump back as he continued molding the chakra, shaping it, bleeding nature energy from the air and environment to help him.

Despite what was obviously a bad blow, the summons limped after him, cheeks bulging and dripping blue sparks. "C'mon!" he urged as the sphere trickled into a quarter-size ball.

The summons stopped moving. Beady black eyes watched him with venomous hatred. Its maw opened and it bellowed, and even as Naruto jumped aside to avoid the next attack, something in the air warned him it would not be enough.

Then the world was awash with white. A noise so loud his eardrums felt as if they had burst. The Rasengan in his hands began to falter, collapse, as he fell backwards to stare at a sky gone black with clouds, of that much he could still be certain of. His whole body tingled, head to toes. Numbness. Air swept into one ear and he winched, blood leaking out.

_What... what just happened?_ He blinked hazily and tried to sit up. It hurt. He shuddered as his muscles twitched involuntarily, each movement a small agony. _Aah..._ and yet... he forced one leg to rise, the knee locking into place. Then the other. This pain was not so bad as half the things he had endured fighting Madara, and Obito. His stomach roiled as he did sit up, reaching to grasp one knee to help steady his progress. His vision was still off, hearing practically gone, but with each odd jerk, he could feel a certainty growing... _this is nothing compared to having Kurama ripped out. _

The well of chakra in his gut, in the broken cage, began to emerge. He had lost his nature energy entirely, and his erratic movements wouldn't let him stay still long enough to gather it again, but that supply of energy filled his limbs and soothed the worst of it. He had to consciously cut it off before he spent more than was needed - he still had to confront Sasuke when this was over. He would need the lion's share of that chakra to be sure of success.

The summons had fallen to the ground after felling him momentarily, wheezing from the outburst of electricity. The barrier around its summoner was gone.

He stood up. Drew a kunai. Took a step, and then another. "Whoever you are," he said with a slight slur, "I can't let you roam the Elemental Countries. The Bijuu were meant to stay dead. Your summons... whatever they are... wherever you come from... I can't let you threaten us."

* * *

><p>The all-pervading silence of the vacuum left in the wake of Pikachu's <em>Thunder<em> proved he had blown out both eardrums. He had been able to roll over off his likely broken hip and leg and force his eyes into the crook of one arm before the bolt, worthy of _Zapdos_ itself, fell from on high, however, and as he rolled over again his sight was mostly clear.

He felt an ounce of respect for the faux-man pokémon's tenacity. Few could claim to rise up again after taking a direct hit so potent. It did nothing to offset his still simmering rage over permanently wounding his starter, but even so.

Breathing hurt. Sitting up hurt him more so. He could feel the shards tumble around, mind-numbingly bad in that hip. He let it grow, used it to feed the furnace inside of himself, his molten pillar of support.

He managed to recall Pikachu. Of the options left, Espeon, Lapras, and even Snorlax might be enough to drive the creature to its knees at last. He dared not risk any further wounds to Charizard despite the boilingly-hot surface of the poké ball the wyvern 'rested' in at the moment.

He could see but not hear the words the enemy uttered. It didn't matter.

He gripped the master ball and leaned into the ruined wall at his back for support, shoving and pulling and leaning until he had his feet up underneath him. All his weight fell on his unbroken leg.

The creature across from him threw the silver knife at the same moment he threw the master ball forward to meet it, tool-against-tool. Red poképower boiled out into the air and _Lugia_ appeared, even as the knife and ball clattered to the ground, useless.

"_Aeroblast._" He ordered with all the strength he could.

Baleful cobalt turned upon their foe as it landed on its feet. The legendary had little reason to trust him, let alone love him, but it had plenty of respect for those on his team.

It flapped its wings once, and the battle was over, twain vortexes converging on the bloody opponent without end.

* * *

><p>**END**?

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **7.5K words. I'll be the first person to admit that the ending is weaker than all the build up before it. I might revise that some time to have a different outcome, but eh.

Also, translations on what Naruto is saying, if google hasn't failed me - _Get out!_ and _That's all?_


	43. 43: Dresdenverse splitaway pre-Changes

**Challenge:** Warden!Molly and Warden!Dresden along with choice allies raid a Red Court stronghold in Bogota where one of the Lords of Outer Night is reportedly present.

Set whenever. Would be pretty neat to see how the war had resolved itself if it hadn't been for the events in Changes. Besides, I kinda disagree about Molly's talents being useless in combat. Sure, she's sensitive, but if she can get past that, imagine how much it'd suck to try to direct your forces over the noise of her rave spell.

**Answer: **Harry Dresden is struggling with a lot of issues this year, but when isn't he? So when a mission comes up in Edinburgh to eliminate one of the central players in the war against the Red Court of Vampires, he doesn't hesitate to draft a theoretical team to help him kill the sumbitch and put the White Council - and therefore humanity - one step closer to victory after nearly ten years.

* * *

><p><em>Chasing the Outer Night<em>  
><em>Intro<em>

* * *

><p>Bogota, Colombia. Nice place this time of year. Warm weather, beautiful architecture, and accommodating locals, always ready to offer a greeting and a quick bite.<p>

But don't be fooled by the beauty. Too many things in this world present an enrapturing front to beguile what lays beneath. I've seen and fought enough of them to recognize a lure that's been cast, and even with my Wizard's Sight closed, there was something just a little too appealing about the first young woman to sidle up to me at the marketplace.

Her flesh-mask was only a shade duskier than my ex's natural tones, smooth black hair drawn back in a ponytail to leave her half-lidded black eyes simmering with... well, everything you'd expect a supposed twenty-something female in her prime to display. A ragged white tee tied off at the midriff displayed prominent cleavage above and a toned belly below, and worn daisy dukes conformed to her hips as if they had been painted on rather than shimmied into. A pair of flipflops protected her feet from the rough, uneven cobblestone, not that you'd guess that from the way she sashayed over to me smooth as silk.

She met my gaze steadfastly and offered a saucy smirk. "_Wel_come to _Bogotá_," she purred, accent rolling off her tongue delightedly. "I see you lack a _companion_. Would you like a _tour _of our modest city?"

Mhm. A man could get used to hearing that kind of tone for an hour or two. I know my libido appreciated it. I smiled and answered her, using a deliberately bad choice of Spanish, "Muéstrame el camino, seducir."

Her nose crinkled. "No, no. Stick with your Americana," she said without the same flair as before. "It will be easier for us both."

I can imagine it would. If she thought I only had a mangled grasp of the local dialect I could get away with feigning ignorance of the conversations along the way. Still, I put on an apologetic frown and said, "The guidebook always seems to scramble up something, I hope I didn't cause offense?"

"You..." she swallowed her response and smiled a little less brilliantly, "it is señora, sir. No matter, let us get under way."

I let her take my hand and guide me out of the marketplace. The crowds forced us close together, walking along between labyrinthine streets and buildings practically atop one another. Naturally my height afforded me a wonderful vantage point. I steadfastly kept my eyes ahead - although if I glanced down once or twice to make sure I didn't step on her smooth heels, who can blame me? I'm sure she noticed, turning her head this way and that way to point out a few relics from the old days. I nodded and "Mhmm'd" and played the dutiful sap taken in by her looks and proximity until she finally dragged me down a less-used alleyway.

"What's down here?" I finally ventured.

In response she turned and pressed me up against the wall, cool moist lips latching onto my own. Immediately her tongue darted out, exchanging the toxic saliva that would reduce me into a relaxed bliss - the better for drinking from.

I can't begin to tell you how good that felt. Really. It lit up all the little endorphin sensors in my brain and made my legs go weak, and she rode me down to the alley floor before straddling my hips. It was only then that she broke the rohypnol kiss and licked her lips in anticipation.

"I think I'll enjoy you slowly," she said. Her whole body shivered and abruptly burst open, and something black and ichor-y grew to fill the open space until it was taller than I was. It hunched over, spraying a noxious odor into my face. I smiled dreamily and closed my eyes.

_Snicker-snack_.

Silent as an empty grave, the silver blade flashed out from the side and shortened the vampire by a head, only at the end making the tell-tale _swish_. A plume of black-blood erupted from the stump and fountained across my body, while the sword swung twice and thrice more to terminate the thrashing limbs before they could harm me. In just seconds the air rippled and a much more attractive young woman appeared on my left, blond tresses matted with sweat. A gray Warden's cloak ran from throat to ankle over a pale pink sweater-vest and faded blue jeans, and she wiped the sword clean on one edge of that cloak before sheathing it again. The garment soaked in the blood without spilling a drop.

"What were you thinking!" she hissed, crouching down to get a grip into my splattered shirt and shake me back and forth. "How often have you told me, over and over and _over_ not to let them make physical contact! Not to let them get so much as a drop of that foul concoction in their mouths on my bare skin!" she ranted in a vehement whisper.

Molly Carpenter, ladies and gents, my one-time apprentice-turned-fellow Warden and Wizard of the White Council. Also my one-time fling, but that's another story. Needless to say certain boundaries had been crossed in more ways than one.

I let her rattle my skull around for a few moments before finally raising and placing a hand atop her own. My left, to be precise, which had been burned and branded many years ago in two separate occasions. Most of the scarring had faded in the half a decade since, but that old hourglass sigil stood out more crisply these days than it had before, and it was mildly-hot to the touch as a result of the new fuel rumbling in my pipes 24-7.

She let go and backed up a pace or so without standing, staring in concern.

I wiped some of the muck off my face with my other hand and opened my eyes again, crisp and clear and devoid of any drug. "You did well, grasshopper, but giving me whiplash is going a bit far with the celebrations."

Molly huffed and looked away a moment, eyes downcast in thought, then glanced back to mine and studied my expression seriously. "How come you're rational again? I was expecting to have to lug your weight back to the meeting point. Not that I'm not grateful."

"When you get to be my age, Molly, a little churning lust racing through the veins just doesn't seem that impressive anymore. I've seen and sampled far better delights."

The young Warden fought back a brief smile in remembrance of those nights together in my basement apartment. I smiled back and leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, but she turned her face aside and drew back, expression souring. "You should get that cleaned up. The smell is nauseating!"

I did a brief mental shrug - fair is fair, after all, one aversion for another - and stood up, pulling her with me.

"It tastes pretty foul too." I slipped out of my shoes and kicked them several feet back toward the alley opening, shook out my blasting rod, and aimed it roughly skyward before intoning, "_Aquilevatus!"_

A stream of scalding hot water flew thirty feet into the air, did a neat pirouette that would have scored a solid 9.9 out all but the Russian judge, and ruptured into a few thousand droplets of near-boiling rain. Some of it splashed against the walls uselessly, some fell out to our sides, but most of it came straight down. Molly yelped and ducked back beneath her Warden cloak with a jog for my shoes, taking shelter out of range.

Personally, after close to fifteen years of cold showers every other time I wanted to clean up, it felt like a little piece of heaven for the few seconds it lasted. I could feel an alien mirth at the comparison, there and gone again by the time I acknowledged it, which was nothing new.

"Ah," I sighed contentedly. "That felt about as good as... well, nevermind." A bit of steam wafted up from my exposed skin, while my jeans and tourist tee were soaked through and dripping steadily to the pool of hot water-and-blood at my feet. I tiptoed out of that and concentrated on my next spell of choice, "_Ventas reductas._"

Warm wind stirred to life on a quiet sigh, gliding back and forth in quick succession about my form. It took near enough to five minutes before the worst of the wetness had dried out, including my socks.

"Now, where were we?" I asked Molly, smiling. She arched a brow and crossed her arms underneath her considerable bust, half concealed beneath that cloak.

"You were acting foolish and I was following discretely?" She offered coolly.

"I like to think of it as distracting a potential source of intel. I don't suppose returning to the marketplace will give us much more of a lead, do you?"

"Not unless you plan on letting every 'seducir' drag you around by the-"

"Hey!" I protested feebly. "I was fully conscious of my actions the entire time, thank you very much."

In response Molly simply shook her head and vanished beneath another steady veil, masking sight, scent, and body heat.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Most I've gotten out of the response so far. I'm stalling like mad on continuing, so until further notice this little snippet is showing up here in **Assortment** rather than earning its slice of the limelight as a stand-alone story like I had intended about a week or so ago.**


	44. 44: Wheel of Westeros(WoT,GoT trial run)

A/N: _An idea I was playing with last year, fusing Wheel of Time into Game of Thrones with a dab of Dark Tower mostly in the terminology here and there. I wasn't quite successful as a friend pointed out, as Rand is merely standing in for a certain Targaryen(not Danerys), Tam for Jon Connington, and Matrim maaaaybe for Mance. I'll cover the others at the end.  
><em>

* * *

><p><span>The Blademaster<span>

"There are dangers in the darkness of every man's heart, Rand. Greed, envy, lust, rage. Hatred. Do not look favorably upon the hearts of men to grant you mercy. Your blood is more precious than the vaults of gold every Lannister swears by above their own kin. Your legacy, your inheritance, is greater than all the lives of men that have walked and warred over these shallow lands."

_Light-scorn_ danced its groaning song before the silent night, brooding, awaiting. Tam al'Thor spun it this way and that, Heron mark flashing in moonlight. A languid ease with which he moved belied the strain upon his father's face. Rand watched and listened attentively.

"Robert Baratheon slew your bloodfather, Rhaegar, who had no talent as you yourself, using treachery and terrain to his murderous advantage. You can never trust to another that their word is truth, that their honesty is not false by omission nor ignorance. You can only rely upon yourself, on the Oneness inherent in your dying blood, on the fallen, forgotten symphony that is Saidin which men remember no more than as a fable of great Valyria's foolish pride!"

"I know. I know. I know."

Violet eyes became rings of fading lilac, purer white, deepest silver, as Rand reached deep into himself where a sword hilt lay untouched, unsullied by physical grip, a link between Rand-the-Man and Rand-the-Dragon, _Saidin_ sealed and slumbering, that when drawn forth could know no match in the depths of its abyss, no equal in its heat, no worldly comparison to the riveting force which drove forward the _Wheel of Time_ and circling _ka_, man and world bound for-evermore.

Iron and gold ore rose before him on threads of Air and Fire. A thought, an imagining, and roaring heat engulfed the metals. Another thread of Air spun tight to hold the gradually softening ores from flying hither and yon, a third lifting up the Heron-stamp, a fourth pulling in Earth and jagged minerals nearby, crushing, grinding until only a powder remained, heating until powder became liquid, and metal and gem soup bled into one another. Rand felt no sweat pouring from his brow though he could feel more so than see the rivulets running down his father's brow. Cool, cold serenity, _Oneness_, offered Rand-the-Dragon a bliss that Rand-the-Man was still only learning to obtain, let alone master.

More threads of Fire wove together about Earth and Air, scorching, wondrous, dragon-flame in the making, hellfire only beginning, as a shape came into Rand's mind, that of a sword without flaw, that of _ Light-scorn_ and _Light-falter_, _Light-consumer_ and _Light-devourer_, each wrought with this the One Power, _Saidin_, each less perfect and each more tolling to exhume from the rugged barrow of his mind embroiled within the abyssal depths. From each of them he drew a link, a marker, a feature perfected in his father's grip, and in this way, this imagining, _Lightbringer_, the pinnacle of his skills, Rand-the-Dragon envisioned and so Power-wrought.

He heard Tam's breathing grow labored. He felt in his ears Tam's heart shuddering against his ribs. He knew the man he had always known as Tam al'Thor, his father, was dying.

And Rand-the-Dragon could cease his activities no more than Rand-the-Man could hold back the ocean, _Oneness_ or none at all.

"Don't stop!" Tam pleaded around the ragged, arid void that had become his throat. "Don't concern yourself... with... me!"

Rand-the-Dragon looked away from the molten shaping before his silver eyes awash with blackest saa, the dragonfire warring against hellfire in truth now, the _taint_ seeking to corrupt even this masterful environment, this perfection taking place. He looked upon Tam al'Thor's face and watched as faded, scarred skin waxed tight against the folded bone beneath, watched as eyes crinkled up with agony, and in a delicate fit of self-contained rage, Rand-the-Dragon and Rand-the-Man agreed upon a course of action.

Threads of Fire and Air and Earth draped upon Tam's shoulders, twining beneath his arms, capturing those muscles that had been honed to such an edge even at the age of sixty. Tam's salt-dry mouth creaked and the most haunting melody flowed over his hard, shrunken stone of a tongue, a song that both Rand's would carry forth for all their lives, as he tried to protest the distraction, the thought that his adopted son was giving up.

_Lightbringer_ pierced Tam al'Thor's chest. Sinew, muscle, blood and bone; dragonfire roared in outrage of his own mercy. All the threads spun and brought the drying life's blood of the blademaster into that molten, solidifying state, the final cure that all its predecessor's had been lacking.

Grief brought weakness into Rand-the-Dragon's knees. He reached forth and laid his right hand upon the finishing hilt of his one true sword, the other easing Tam's mummifying corpse to the floor, no pain from searing so great as to surmount his heart's destruction. A single thread of Air and Fire carved the sigil of the Dragonfang, House Targaryen's everlasting mark, at the beginning of the blade.

"For you father, _Lightbringer_ I doth claim!"

What followed was a blur of tears blotting out the saa. _Saidin_ heavy relented as _Oneness_ left and Rand-the-Man was all that remained, a youth with the weight of a sunken continent pressing on his spine. _ Lightbringer_ quenched in scarlet hung above his head, yellow-red glow radiant to behold.

* * *

><p><span>The Dragon<span>

Cold washed over even his senses within _Oneness_, the snow clinging to his beard and melting in his overgrown hair. Colder lilac eyes, the same eyes as Rhaegar Targaryen his bloodfather had known from every mirror, observed the blighted wastelands beyond the Wall of the Night's Watch men. _Saidin_ would not come to him, this time. _Lightbringer_'s warmth offered him all of the source that he would ever need this day and night.

"Fancy that, lads, a wildman right up here at our borders. Don't much liken that to a good omen on the expedition ahead, do you?"

Rand turned his eyes upward to the trees, where sat a trio of deserters. Bows thrummed idly. "Do as you will. I hunt Myrddraal this night, a sport your kind has forgotten in eight hundred years."

The first bow twanged readily. Rand watched as the third deserter's face lit up in confusion only a moment midway through his response, settling upon fury at the end, and then the coward drew, notched, fired. It was the languid grace of his late father that Rand drew upon to evade. The shaft buried itself to the ragged tail feather beside his left boot.

"Hold!" the lead traitor jerked the bow from his lessor's hands and studied Rand with half-again as much interest as he'd had originally.

"Tell me, friend, what duty is this that you speak of so drearily? _ Myrddraal_! the name rings my ring-mail something fierce, and chill, colder than this here winter's night!"

Rand bent and plucked the squandered arrow from the ground, fingers pinching beneath the poisoned feathers. Discoloration so faint he could have blamed it upon sunlight bleaching; instinct and the words of his father told him otherwise.

"You would know them as White Walkers. Eldritch. Dead awoken in the pitch of night, clad-" and here the deserter interrupted him, saying, almost sing-songing, "-clad in cloak as black as Night, carved in twilight glimmer rite, flesh of milky sopping white, Myrddraal-Walker, beware yon flight!"

Rand fell silent as the traitor dropped from the treetop on nimble hands and toes, scurrying as would a squirrel across the snow.

"Now there's a whimsy my dear old mum could have recited from heart ere she shriveled up all cold and black 'erself! How come a fine young man as yourself came by these tales, hm?"

"My father taught them to me by bedside long ago. Now stray from my path ere the Myrddraal come at my call."

"An what sort of call might that be, iffen ye don't mind a measly little cloak o' the crows askin' so very, very polite?"

_Oneness_ again enveloped Rand's mind, blackest saa swarming his hazy violet eyes. Radiance gleamed down the length of his sword, bright golden red, scarlet streaks, lancing up into the trees and burning their bows to fiery ashes. Rand looked the deserter straightly in the eyes, the faintest measure of tolerance inclining his head at the iron in that man's spine, and he uttered but one word with the ring of authority that no man since and no man prior had put into tone aloud, "_Saidin_."

And the wind blew. The snow-leaden branches shivered, dumping their loads upon both men's shoulders. Water ran down Rand's backside where it touched _Lightbringer_'s hilt. Out in the distant hills, shadow coiled where sunlight eclipsed the horizon of the Wall. Some mad beasts yowled and drew silent.

"Matrim, I's for goin' now an let... let th' master be on 'is right'ous way." A speck of iron granted the other deserter some respect. Rand turned and began to pace ahead.

Matrim struck what he believed to be a blow of honor and great reward. He sank his strap-dagger to the hilt in the madman's side.

Rand did not slow nor turn. He reached down and ripped the bloody linen away, revealing layer upon layer of gauze between his cloak, mail, and flesh beneath. "If you walk the frigid coast, you must pay in skin or iron. Do not test my patience further."

Matrim harrumphed. His fingers played over the hilt of his favored tool even as his boots trod a fleet pace to keep up with the stranger.

"Come now kind sir, surely you've-" a flash of light snapped out and twined around the dagger beneath the deserter's fingers, whipping the tool aside and throwing it quivering-hilt deep into another tree some seventy yards away. A shape hitherto blind to their eyes slumped down with a ragged growl.

"Matrim! Blight upon ye, man, lesgo afore ye kill us all!"

"Go if you will! Run back to the sanctuary of the crows' noose!" Matrim stepped quicker so as to avoid falling behind. "I liken my odds most favorably today!" Without breaking tone, "What is that, if I may?" he ventured toward the slump in the snow over yonder. "I'd rather lose m' favored dagger 'n lose m' favored hands, y'see, sir!"

Rand's shoulders bunched up. His fingers clenched. The figure unseen arose dripping molten blood and water. "Shadowhound. The forewalkers of my prey."

"Ah? Them old... old myths, yes." Some of Matrim's eagerness evaporated as the twitching, oozing corpse neared. Rand reached out and grasped the dagger blindly, drawing the edged blade in a sweeping arc up and out of the frontal shoulders, spraying them both in its gore.

"If you desire to meet them so, than enjoy your final moments opposed. I'll see to your second-death myself."

Matrim's eyes swept across the bloody guts clinging to his cape with all the pleasure of a hanged man. "First m' bloody knife, now m' bloody garb," he muttered peevishly, at once put-out and sincerely hurt. Rand's silverel will cracked the slightest at that dent, the pale shadow of a smile cloying at his lips with the desperateness of a drowning sailor man. He threw another wave of_ Saidin_, _Oneness_, and the faintest smirk drowned, but not before Matrim had caught the glimmer.

"Ah!" he crowed victoriously. "See you now, my lord of dread, you be needing a good smile and a laugh with such a grim business venture underway. I bring laughter to that stoic sense of pride pushing you on this, hm, heroic deed?" he glanced from Rand to his fellow deserters, now in the midst of fleeing toward a good hanging, and asked "It _is_ a heroic deed you are undertaking, yes? Some besotted ideology of good for the greater man?"

Rand's grasp over _Oneness_ began to turn upon itself, as ever in these days nearing the _Winter King_, Night's own lord and keeper. He held onto it tenaciously only a moment longer and then relented. Again, _Lightbringer_ was all the source that he had need of as now...

"Yes." Rand admitted. "I wield the sword of prophecy. I harness the One Power Split in Twain. I know the names of my forsaken forefathers and the deeds they betook in to cast our world in shadows, ever-cold."

Matrim accepted his dagger back graciously in posture, bowing generously, if only to hide the disgust swelling in his eyes. "A good man's foolish fate is death all the same, you know. Be it madness of your gifts, heart and eyes and hair, or sword and fang and claw. Myrddraal!" he spat the last as would a curse. "I know of these legends, Dragon-born. I know of an ending ye've got in that wiry mind o' ye'rs too, both of 'em good an dark alike, an far be it for a simple gamblin' man as m'self to contradict such a fine young fellow, but ye'r too confident. Too fulla ye'r own self-right'ousness as m' allies had said. Not that I think there's anythin' good an wrong with that, mind, I liken m'self the same, but I's got a good idea of where to draw m'line. Do ye'rself a favor an let this matter ride until ye'r've sorted out th' little matter of whose ruling these mighty lands North and South of the Wall." Matrim sighed and swept a hand through his ruined cloak. "Go home, Dragon-born. Go home and root out th' man whose soured ye'r lands an keeps for as long as ye'r've been alive."

Rand finally stopped walking. "And what? Come back a King to challenge a King? Peasantry doth die and mortal lands go to rot, weeping all the while, as Kings clash and horror wreaks, Power's defile as they erode and twist and shudder the very earth beneath our feet! Do not take me for a fool, you who would break his word of oath as Robert Baratheon at Trident's Sundering!"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, Winter King is a mesh of the Dark One and the Great Other, Myrddraal are at once the Fades of WoT and the Others plaguing the land north of the Wall. This was just a test run of the concept to see how far I could play with it before getting serious. If I do go forward it'll be a true blend of Westeros and Randland, another Age, a Dragon Reborn to the Seven Kingdoms or, perhaps, Essos, and the awakening of Saidin for the first time since Valyria was destroyed by the One Power and pride centuries before. Perhaps a return of real Saidar too.**


End file.
